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Dorsey High’s 1982 City Section football championship team walked onto the stage with a youthful swagger. Though it has been decades since they celebrated within the halls of the school, it was like they had never left that courtyard.

Alumni and family cheered and danced alongside them at Dorsey’s first full athletics reunion. Soon after, the cheerleaders for the 1976 championship basketball team came out to perform. The up and coming sports teams for the 2026-27 school year came out with their families, as hundreds of people celebrated the legacy and the future of the school.

But Dorsey has undergone a lot of changes since the turn of the century.

In 25 years, it has gone from a well-attended school with a successful athletics program to one that has faded into the background of Los Angeles.

The last football championship came in 2001. The next year, Dorsey enrolled 2,211 students, the most in school history, according to Public School Review. Now, enrollment is hitting a low with 792 students, according to US News, and the athletic teams are trying to find that powerhouse status again.

Enter former football head coach Paul Knox. He had a solution — or at least an idea. Bring together the athletics alumni of Dorsey for a day of celebration, with a look ahead to the future.

On Saturday, hundreds of current and former Dorsey Dons came to the school for the reunion. There were a lot of stories, old photos, laughter and love being passed around from people who haven’t touched the campus in four decades. Alumni from all the way back in the 1950s came. Knox gave tours of the renovations the school has undertaken, and the event also highlighted the soon-to-be football stadium and new basketball gym.

Later in the day, the current teams were introduced to everybody in attendance as was the 1976 City championship basketball team. The chance to showcase both the past and present is what inspired Knox, who hasn’t coached at Dorsey since 2014, to put on this event.

“The atmosphere that is here, the pride that everybody has in the school in general … it’s one of the most passionate alumni that you are going to have,” Knox said.

Dorsey’s enrollment struggles are not unique. Across California, public school enrollment is down. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, enrollment dropped over 16,000 in the past year. Private and charter schools are on the up in both academics and athletics, leaving places such as Dorsey — that dominated for so long — behind.

Dorsey High alum and former major leaguer Don Buford sits under a towering ficus tree on campus Saturday during the school’s all-sports reunion.

(Caleb Otte / For The Times)

Dorsey has a long history of sending athletes to the professional leagues. Former major leaguer Don Buford, who graduated in 1955, was present at the event. He barely had a moment to himself as multiple other alumni wanted to chat and grab photos with him, and Buford was happy to exchange excited, reminiscent anecdotes.

Buford was sitting in front of a massive ficus tree, with roots the size of a 5-year-old child coming up out of the ground. He took a moment to look back when talking to a class of 1958 alumni, noticing the size of the plant.

“When I went here, this was just a little tree,” he said.

Eighty years of students coming through the halls of Dorsey watched the small seedling sprout into a towering, beautiful beast.

Knox, and the administration of the school, are treating this reunion as the initial seed for the rehabilitation of the athletics program and hopefully the entire school.

“The passion is there,” Knox said. “We’re really hoping to inspire the teams now, to show them that there’s depth behind the things they do.”

Beyond the prime directive of the event, it simply served as a way for the Dorsey community to experience joy. So many former players caught up with their coaches. People were introducing themselves to legendary alumni that they hoped to meet. Finding a face without a smile would’ve been a Herculean task.

The day also served as a chance to show the current students at Dorsey what opportunities are out there for them, whether that be from sports or otherwise. Former champions were highlighted alongside what Dorsey hopes are their future champions.

Baseball alumni all wore shirts that said “Legacy of Greatness … Five Rings, One Legacy.” Their most recent championship was in 2014. Little signs like that permeated the day, as did a big one displaying every Dorsey championship.

The idea that the school has a history of success, and they want to get back there, was the cornerstone of the event — without it being explicitly stated.

“Once you go here, you get that feeling,” Knox said.

Even with all the fanfare, the man giving out raffle tickets at the front entrance encapsulated it perfectly.

“It’s a great day to be a Don.”

At least eight people, including students and teachers, were killed and 15 others injured after a student opened fire inside a school in Thailand. Police said the gunman later died by suicide.

Pierce College won’t have a football season in 2026.

The community college in Woodland Hills announced it has placed the football program “on hiatus” for 2026.

Players were informed Monday and were told they should look for another program if they wanted to play immediately.

Orange Coast College also has paused its season and won’t play in 2026.

In its official statement, a spokesperson indicated “health and safety concerns” as the reason for the hiatus. The school was monitoring the roster during the summer and delayed a final decision “as long as possible” hoping the roster would expand.

Here’s the statement:

“Los Angeles Pierce College has made the difficult decision to place its football program on hiatus for the 2026 season.

“This decision was made after a careful evaluation of the program and with the health and safety of our student-athletes as our highest priority. While we are disappointed that we will not field a football team this season, our immediate focus is supporting our student-athletes and helping those who wish to continue competing identify opportunities with other collegiate programs. We are working closely with the Southern California Football Association and other area colleges to provide opportunities for student-athletes to compete. Our priority is minimizing disruption to students’ academic progress and while supporting their athletic goals.”

Football teams have always been important contributors for enrollment at the junior college level.

DETROIT — Two people who attended a prestigious Michigan fine arts school reported conduct of a sexual nature by Jeffrey Epstein, a major donor, according to an investigation that also uncovered dozens of allegations spanning decades against nearly 50 other people.

Interlochen Center for the Arts operates a summer camp and performing arts school that draws students from around the world. It hired a law firm in 2024 to investigate reports of sexual abuse by faculty and staff. Subsequently, it expanded the work to include information about Epstein, the 66-year-old financier who killed himself in jail in 2019.

Interlochen removed Epstein’s name from a lodge after he was convicted of sex offenses in Florida in 2008. The building, renamed the Green Lake Lodge, recently was demolished after the U.S. Justice Department released millions of pages about Epstein that had been compiled over the years.

Sanghavi Law Office says it collected 70 accounts from alumni alleging “physical conduct of a sexual nature” by 47 faculty and staff members affiliated with Interlochen from the 1950s through the 2010s, most before 2000.

“The information gathered during this investigation is, simply, devastating,” the 97-page report says, noting that alumni reported grooming, flirting, sexual touching and sex.

Interlochen said it provided names of people accused of misconduct to Grand Traverse County authorities in northern Michigan to determine what steps, if any, might be taken. None are employed at the school and more than a third are dead.

“We are deeply sorry for the harm experienced by members of our community and extend our apologies to those impacted by abuse at Interlochen,” president Trey Davey and board chair Barrett Rollins said in a letter to the community posted online.

“While the vast majority of the incidents described in the investigation took place decades ago, and reports of abuse at Interlochen have significantly decreased over the past 25 years, the passage of time does not diminish the experiences of our alumni,” they said. “Sexual abuse committed by an adult in a position of power or trust against a student is wrong, then and now.”

Interlochen today “is fundamentally different from the institution described in this report,” Davey and Rollins wrote, with comprehensive safety policies and a changed culture.

Epstein, who played the bassoon, was an Interlochen camper in 1967. He donated more than $400,000 to the school between 1990 and 2003.

Two women told investigators that Epstein engaged in conduct of a sexual nature with them, one of them at the Interlochen lodge that bore his name. He brushed against her body “over her clothes, in a manner in which he indicated was accidental,” according to the report.

Epstein also paid for her to visit him in New York while she was a student. She said “every time he was ‘handsy’ with her, she would freeze until he would stop,” the report states.

The other woman said she gave Epstein a massage at his home, according to the report, and he may have asked her to remove her top. She said she had no further contact with Epstein or his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Outside of the school investigation, at least two Interlochen alumnae made allegations of grooming and abuse against Epstein and Maxwell, according to federal records and media reports. Their identities were not made public.

One testified against Maxwell in 2021 when she was convicted of sex trafficking. It’s unclear whether those women spoke to the law firm hired for the Interlochen investigation.

White writes for the Associated Press.

An Indian student from Bihar says he has been charged over ‘Cockroach’ protests despite being in Russia for the last four months. Hundreds of students across India have faced arrest for participating in the youth-led demonstrations.

The Hogwarts Express has arrived in Perris, Calif.

The Southern California Railway Museum has temporarily turned into Platform 9 3⁄4 to host “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.” The one-hour theater performance takes place on a moving train and features singalongs, spellcasting and House cheers. Tickets cost between $72.25 and $93.25 per passenger.

The experience is the first of its kind in the United States, said Jarrette Ireland, vice president and general manager of Colorado-based Rail Events Inc., and Kathleen Wallis, vice president of global themed entertainment at New York-based Warner Bros. Discovery.

As of July 23, the experience sold just under 11,000 tickets in pre-sales.

The train event commences as the Harry Potter franchise’s author, J.K. Rowling, continues to draw criticism for her opposition toward transgender women. She has long been criticized for transphobic commentary on X and for funding organizations that fight to exclude trans women from public life.

In Perris, local LGBTQ+ activists urge for a boycott. Ashley Williamson, lead director of R.I.S.E. Perris Pride, said that financially supporting the experience — and anything to do with a Harry Potter trademark — funnels money to Rowling, who puts that wealth toward initiatives targeting trans rights.

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1. The cast performs with magic wands in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.” 2. A passenger holds a Platform 9 3/4 ticket. 3. The Hogwarts Express conductor performs in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.” (David Fouts / For The Times)

“What’s really terrifying is that influence. It’s already being felt in the United States,” Williamson said. “There’s a trans genocide happening. It’s very serious.”

Williamson, who is nonbinary and identifies under the trans umbrella, said it is “already very scary being openly queer in Perris,” where the Harry Potter experience is hosted. She, her children and other queer and trans folks in their circle have experienced hateful slurs, home vandalism and other queerphobic prejudice.

Asking the public not to purchase anything Harry Potter related, they said, is “the most we feel that we can do for our community.”

Responding to general concerns about Rowling, Wallis said, “We feel privileged to create these experiences for the fans who love the stories, and there’s a very deep fandom out there. A lot of these kids, my own included, grew up with these movies and stories, and they love to experience them in new ways.”

Warner Bros. Discovery did not respond to a request for comment about local advocacy at the time of publication.

Ireland said Rail Events “is really proud to welcome all guests to a great experience” and later clarified that it doesn’t have “a personal connection” to Rowling.

But Warner does. For instance, its new Harry Potter television series will air this Christmas.

There was no mention of Rowling during a recent preview of the train experience, which is geared toward children. Passengers travel through “Platform 9¾” and board the train, where four Hogwarts students belonging to each House greet them.

A cast member carries Fred Weasley’s Basic Blaze Box.

Passengers watch the performance in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”

“Are you a Hufflepuff?” one of the Hogwarts students asked a visitor.

For those unfamiliar with the Harry Potter universe, each House embodies a trait: courage for Gryffindor, loyalty for Hufflepuff, wisdom for Ravenclaw and ambition for Slytherin.

When the train takes off, the students make these personality differences known. The Gryffindor and Slytherin maintain a traditional rivalry, the Ravenclaw nerds out about magical history and the Hufflepuff attempts to mediate them all.

To successfully complete their journey, each student must embody a virtue that belongs to a different House. The Gryffindor must hone wisdom, the Hufflepuff courage, the Ravenclaw ambition and the Slytherin loyalty.

Throughout the ride, the students put their new traits to the test: confronting a hippogriff blocking the tracks, capturing runaway chocolate frogs and facing off a soul-sucking dementor. By the end of the journey, they overcome their House stereotypes and learn they aren’t so different from one another after all.

A dementor puppet moves through the train in “Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Express Adventure.”

According to the experience’s website, the train travels along a route through the neighborhoods of Perris and starts and ends at the same place. When visitors disembark the train, they head to an area inspired by Hogsmeade, a village that sits outside Hogwarts. Here, they can purchase themed drinks, food and merchandise.

Navigating the logistics of “putting theater tech into a train” was a “real adventure,” Ireland said. Inside, TV screens replaced the overhead luggage compartments, and a strip of lights lined the carriages’ walls from front to back. Gray shades embellished with a circular “Hogwarts Express” logo covered all the windows, so visitors can’t see outside.

These elements aided the storytelling. The TVs played scenes from the Harry Potter films and helped suspend disbelief where magical creatures were involved, and the lighting system aided in spellcasting.

Streaks of light fly down the carriage in one dueling scene, and in the show’s climax, the lights go dark when a dementor — played by a hooded actor puppeteering the creature strapped to their torso — floats down the aisle.

It was the Hufflepuff who, with the help of passengers, vanquished the dementor.

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1. The cast showcases floating feathers after performing a levitation spell. 2. A cast member carries a box of chocolate frogs through the train.

“Everyone, repeat after me!” the Hufflepuff called, wand pointed at the creature. “Expecto Patronum!”

As passengers chanted the incantation together, white light flashed through the carriage, and music swelled from the speakers. Defeated, the dementor drifted down the aisle and out of sight.

The experience will run at the Southern California Railway Museum through Sept. 27.

Ireland said future stops will be announced in the fall, with plans to expand throughout North America and, ultimately, to the United Kingdom.

An Indian police officer has been suspended after firing an AK-47 rifle at students protesting over leaked exam papers. The protests, which led to the education minister’s resignation, have sparked accusations of excessive police force.

Anonymous donors are using food delivery apps to send food to student protesters in New Delhi, where demonstrations over alleged medical exam paper leaks continue. The youth-led movement has expanded into wider calls for educational reform and accountability.

New Delhi, India – Blood spots on the walls, overturned barricades, shattered mirrors and sandals strewn across the road. A scarf here, broken glasses and a torn shirt there lie as remnants of the chaos that took over the Indian capital.

The heart of New Delhi – Parliament Street and Connaught Place, a colonial-era square – bears the imprint of Monday’s police crackdown on thousands of protesters, most of them students, who had shut down the capital, demanding that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign.

A swarm of protesters reached parliament’s doorstep before retreating as the police tear-gassed them. More than 100 students were injured.

“I still cannot believe my eyes that I’m in Delhi,” said Anshul Dev, an 18-year-old who grew up in the capital. “Part of it is because tear gas still stings,” he added, bursting into laughter with his group of friends. One of them had both legs bandaged.

“This government, whom our elders voted to power, is treating us like terrorists and criminals,” Dev said. “This is our country, and we are reclaiming it from their hateful politics. We are here to break the spell.”

Anger among India’s youth, the world’s largest Gen Z cohort, has been simmering for the past two months over a string of compromised entrance exams that affected millions of students. In some cases, exam papers were leaked; in others, students who sought copies of their answer scripts found that they had been wrongly graded. More than 20 students died by suicide, many citing the paper leaks.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed the protests, even as he appeared smiling on Monday in parliament, barely metres away from demonstrators at one point.

Analysts said the student protests face formidable obstacles before they can extract concessions from Modi’s government. Yet the protests, the government’s refusal to hold any of its own accountable and the crackdown have also embellished a charge that the prime minister has long faced from critics and opposition parties – that although he is elected democratically, he behaves like an autocrat.

‘Protests will continue’

After dark on Monday, Abhijeet Dipke – the leader of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a political pressure group that called the march – returned to a torn-down stage at the CJP’s main protest site near Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory that is now an important location for protests.

“This barbaric Delhi police has beaten up our students and comrades. We are heartbroken,” he said, addressing about 2,000 protesters who stayed back after the crackdown. “We will continue to resist and demand accountability from the government. We will not back down until Dharmendra Pradhan resigns.”

Dipke told the protesters that the Delhi police “brutally cracked down to crush our hopes” that Pradhan would resign. “It was only our first call to march,” he said. “There will be more. Do not lose hope.”

Volunteers began to pick up rubbish, tie a tent together and sweep the road at the Jantar Mantar site. This is where more than 100 protesters from student unions have been sleeping for nearly a month to join Sonam Wangchuk, a prominent activist, on a hunger strike to seek the minister’s resignation.

The police also rampaged through these student unions’ tarpaulin tents and belongings on Monday.

The movement gained momentum last week after the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site and restricted him to a government-run hospital, where he remains. His family and the CJP have called it “illegal detention”, but the Delhi High Court has refused immediate relief.

Wangchuk, 59, broke his hunger strike before the march on Monday; however, later he said he would be at it again after “seeing the brutality” against “peacefully protesting students”.

The Delhi police have filed at least five criminal cases against protesters related to violence, stone-throwing and vandalism during the march.

Meeting with government a ‘waste of time’

Before the march, CJP leaders said the government reached out for talks.

As thousands of demonstrators assembled in New Delhi, two CJP spokespeople met JP Nadda, India’s health minister, to convey the movement’s three demands: Pradhan’s immediate resignation, Wangchuk’s discharge from hospital and compensation of nearly $105,000 for the families of those students who died by suicide.

However, they were disillusioned by sunset. “It was a waste of our time,” said Ashutosh Ranka, a CJP spokesperson. “We were made to wait for four hours, and the minister met us for 10 minutes.”

Nadda said he met with the spokespeople “in a cordial atmosphere”, adding that he “requested all the protesters to end their sit-in and assist the administration in restoring normalcy”.

Some students have been calling for the decentralisation of the protests, so they could move beyond the CJP to demand accountability from the government.

And political analysts who spoke with Al Jazeera said maintaining the credibility of the CJP’s leadership remains one of the biggest immediate hurdles for the movement in the face of an unprecedented crowd turnout for the march.

Confronting a ‘strong man’

Since the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site, the movement and demonstrators have called on Modi to resign. Slogans targeting the prime minister reverberated through central New Delhi on Monday.

The large number of protesters “is itself a big challenge to the prime minister”, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an author and Modi biographer.

As of now, he told Al Jazeera, “Modi has decided to continue with his instinctive response of not giving any concessions to protesters and continuing to project himself as a strong man with completely unshakeable will.”

The biographer added that the prime minister, who has been in power since 2014, “does not care before crushing a protest or using brute force until it cuts through his voting constituencies”.

“They will go by their gut response of a crackdown. Modi would not want to emerge from this with a bloody nose,” he added, “despite a lot of anger among youth, which shows the undercurrent of anti-incumbency.”

The simmering anger found a vent as Gen Z rallied behind a joke, the Cockroach Janta Party, after India’s chief justice equated government critics and unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites”.

Memes, online rants and students taking photos in front of police have flooded the internet in India, where they expressed anguish and took digs at the police crackdown.

Meghnad S, a YouTuber, was among the crowd of thousands in front of the Indian Parliament on Monday.

“It was insanity, and the crowd was really riled up due to police actions. It was cruel,” he told Al Jazeera from the protest site on Monday night. “But movements are always messy. This is very difficult to control. We are all cockroaches, after all. And we are still swarming here.”

By Tuesday morning, the crowd had packed the site yet again. The cockroaches had returned.

July 17 (Asia Today) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a final rule Thursday limiting stays by international students and exchange visitors to no more than four years and requiring them to undergo federal review when seeking extensions.

The rule replaces the open-ended “duration of status” system for holders of F student visas and J exchange visitor visas with fixed admission periods tied to their programs and capped at four years.

About 1.5 million current F- and J-visa holders will automatically be transferred to the new system.

The change, combined with a shorter post-graduation grace period and mandatory extension reviews for students seeking Optional Practical Training, could disrupt the fall semester and reduce demand for study in the United States.

Exchange visitors will also be limited to four-year stays. Foreign journalists holding I visas will generally have to renew their status every 240 days.

Federal review required for extensions

F- and J-visa holders who need to remain in the United States beyond their authorized period will have to apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for an extension of stay.

Applicants will be required to submit biometric information and undergo security, identity and fraud screening. They must also demonstrate satisfactory academic progress and financial stability, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The change ends a system in place since 1978 that allowed students to remain in the country as long as they maintained the required course load and complied with the conditions of their immigration status.

Homeland Security officials said more than 2,100 F-1 students who entered the United States between 2000 and 2010 were still maintaining F-1 status in 2025.

The department said the rule was intended to prevent people from repeatedly enrolling in classes to avoid leaving the country, a practice officials described as creating “forever students.”

“For nearly half a century, the outdated duration-of-status system has undermined national security and created an environment where immigration fraud could flourish,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.

“By enforcing clear and finite periods, the United States is restoring its ability to properly screen and manage those who remain in our country,” he said.

Nearly 24,400 Koreans and family members affected

The roughly 1.5 million F- and J-visa holders currently staying in the United States under the duration-of-status system will receive fixed admission periods of up to four years beginning on the rule’s effective date, Bloomberg reported.

Foreign journalists entering on I visas will generally be admitted for 240 days and must apply for additional 240-day periods. Chinese journalists will be limited to 90-day extensions.

More than 1.8 million entries were recorded on student visas in 2024, an increase of more than 11% from the previous year, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The United States also hosted about 500,000 J-visa exchange visitors and 37,000 foreign journalists holding I visas.

Students from India, China and South Korea are expected to be among those most affected by the rule, Bloomberg reported.

According to the South Korean Embassy in Washington, 11,861 South Korean students held F-1 visas in 2025 and 1,347 family members held F-2 visas.

Another 7,985 South Koreans held J-1 exchange visitor visas and 3,180 family members held J-2 visas, bringing the total number of South Korean F- and J-visa holders and their dependents to 24,373.

An additional 349 South Koreans held I visas.

The rule is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Friday and take effect 60 days later, in mid-September.

Its implementation during the fall semester could create confusion involving visa extensions and student enrollment records, Bloomberg reported.

Shorter grace period could disrupt employment pathway

The rule cuts the grace period after graduation from 60 days to 30 days for students preparing to leave the United States, transfer schools or change immigration status.

It also bars graduate students from changing their educational objectives and requires government approval before they transfer to another institution, Reuters reported.

Doctoral students, whose programs commonly take about six years, may have to apply for extensions before completing their studies and face the possibility of denial, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Doctors participating in long-term training programs will also have to seek extensions after four years, according to Bloomberg.

Nearly all students using Optional Practical Training, which permits eligible graduates to work in the United States for up to three years, will effectively be required to apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for extensions for the first time.

Visa holders who remain beyond their authorized periods could face three- or 10-year bans on re-entering the United States, depending on the length of the overstay.

Technology and financial companies frequently hire international graduates through Optional Practical Training before sponsoring them for H-1B specialty occupation visas.

More restrictive access to practical training could narrow that employment pathway, The Wall Street Journal reported.

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, said the restrictions on changing educational objectives and transferring schools lacked a legal basis.

He said graduates who fail to find an employer sponsor within 30 days could “immediately become unlawfully present.”

Education groups consider challenge

Fanta Aw, president and chief executive officer of the Association of International Educators, called the rule a misguided and unnecessary policy change.

She said it would inject “uncertainty, bureaucracy and fear” into a system that had operated effectively for decades and said the association was considering all available options to challenge it.

Todd Lyons, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in May that the agency had launched an investigation into fraud involving Optional Practical Training.

Lyons said investigators had identified 10,000 international students employed by companies suspected of fraud and described the program as a “magnet for fraud,” Bloomberg reported.

The number of international students in the United States fell 1.4% during the previous fall semester, while new international student enrollment declined 17%.

Student visa issuance fell 36% during the previous summer, and the new rule could accelerate the decline as it takes effect during the fall semester, Bloomberg reported.

The regulation will also be subject to congressional review before its implementation, Reuters reported.

Doug Rand, a former Homeland Security official, said most Americans understand both the value of welcoming international students and the need to eliminate unnecessary regulation.

“This rule will achieve precisely the opposite result,” he said.

International education expert Rajika Bhandari said students would consider not only whether they could obtain visas and enter the United States but also whether they had viable long-term options after completing their studies.

She said Asian students and graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields would be particularly affected.

“The implications of this change are not yet fully understood by students, but they will be profound,” Bhandari said.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260717010006341

A 15-YEAR-OLD girl was stranded in Rome and missed six weeks of school because of confusing new passport rules.

The new dual nationality rules meant that she was unable to return home for over a month.

The British girl had been visiting her grandmother in Italy in April of this year.

When it was time to return home, she was turned away at the airport because she didn’t have a valid British passport.

The new passport rules that came into play in February mean that British nationals have to carry a valid British passport to return to the UK – they can no longer use their foreign passport.

An alternative is to have a “certificate of entitlement” costing £589.

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Rowan Somerville, the father of the 15-year-old stranded in Rome, sought help from the Home Office and the Foreign Office.

But he told The Guardian: “The embassy, the Home Office and the Foreign Office bounced us from one to another.

“They are playing with people’s lives, a child’s education. It is loathsome.”

Rowan Somerville said that the Home Office couldn’t give his daughter a temporary passport because she didn’t have a British passport in the first place.

The girl’s school and local MP Joe Powell contacted the Home Office and the FCDO who eventually issued an emergency travel document.

Joe Powell said that “changes to Home Office rules resulted in her being stuck in Rome and missing six weeks of school.”

Joe Powell added: “Thankfully, we were able to help and she’s now at home and back in school, but unfortunately this was not an isolated case.”

A Home Office spokesperson told Sun Travel: “This individual was granted an Emergency Travel Document in May, enabling them to return to the UK.

“We also remained in contact regarding a passport application, and once the required information was received and checks were concluded, a passport was issued within eight days.

“Since 25 February 2026, all dual British citizens have needed to present either a valid British passport or Certificate of Entitlement when travelling to the UK.

“Without one, carriers cannot verify British citizenship, which may lead to delays or refused boarding.” were concluded, a passport was issued within eight days.”

There are thought to be as many as 1.2million people who can no longer use their foreign passport to enter the country.

Despite the rules being outlined on the Gov.uk website, they are continuing to catch people out.

In another case, a woman who has lived in the UK for 28 years, but had been staying in Copenhagen attempted to return to the UK with her six-week- old and 23-month-old for a friend’s wedding.

But the family was refused boarding because her two children only had Danish passports which meant they didn’t have valid travel documents for returning to the UK.

The University of California Board of Regents is being asked to consider whether to bring back the SAT and ACT for admissions, a debate so hot even New York is weighing in on this Golden State dilemma.

Despite dire warnings from our right-coast friends and thousands (yes, thousands) of professors who claim incoming students lack necessary skills, I’m here to present a somewhat contrarian position, based on reality, common sense and one key fact that keeps getting shuffled to the side: California parents pay taxes so their California kids can attend these excellent schools, even if they can’t do advanced calculus.

UC is not Harvard, and was never meant to embody that type of self-perpetuating exclusivity disguised as a meritocracy. As the parent of two (hopefully) college-bound teens, I understand the resentment toward both the UC admission process and the post-pandemic, artificial intelligence mess that plagues our K-12 schools.

But at its best, this push to immediately bring back these tests is a disservice to both the mission of our public universities and the remaining classes of kids who lost learning during the pandemic. At worst, it is jumping on the misguided and retrograde anti-diversity, anti-inclusion bandwagon being led by the Trump administration — and pretending we don’t see where this caravan is headed.

Here’s the common sense: This isn’t a problem of scamming students or lazy teachers, though of course both exist. This is a problem with high schools, and the lingering effects of the pandemic. Bringing back a test solves neither.

“For sure, these are systemic structural problems and inequalities,” Michal Kurlaender, the chancellor’s leadership professor of education policy at UC Davis, told me.

Still, the argument is that we are letting in the “wrong” candidates — those who lack academic skills that would solve for the derivative of f(x) = 3x² + 2x − 5 but who are desirable for other, perhaps invalid, reasons that our current admissions are favoring.

This narrative was given a rocket-fuel boost when UC math professors released an open letter demanding standardized tests be reinstated to weed out the unprepared students cluttering their classes. That letter has now been signed by more than 3,000 UC faculty.

Shockingly, the letter seems to be pushing for a return to standardized tests by, in effect, arguing that a growing percentage of their students are simply too stupid to succeed, no matter what professors do.

“UC has finite resources and can help only so many students, and only when the preparation deficits they need to overcome are within reach,” the letter reads.

These “wrong” candidates are supposedly sneaking through the grueling admissions process with inflated grades and AI cheating (never mind their numerous Advanced Placement test scores, which are largely being ignored in this debate), and what some apparently believe is the foolish decision of administrators to emphasize an admissions process that goes beyond rankings, scores and grades.

The result of the unwelcome presence of these “wrong” admits in our elite academic halls is world-class professors being forced to teach beneath-them basics, and a diminishing of the reputation of our top schools — despite the fact that Berkeley was just rated the No. 1 public university in the country (UCLA is No. 2) and received a record 133,000 first-year applications in 2026.

Here’s that reality I mentioned: When we talk about wrong candidates, we are actually largely talking about race and socioeconomics (including the ever-squeezed middle class).

In California, where the Latino population is more than 40% and growing, our universities have increasingly pushed to serve this demographic and other “first-generation” or underrepresented college applicants. We have also significantly increased the number of students our universities accept, from all demographics.

It is useful to know that standardized testing was eliminated by the regents in a controversial 2020 vote, largely based on the idea that it was discriminating against this broader pool of students — though the data didn’t actually back that up.

In fact, a 19-person task force that investigated the issue found the opposite: that the tests were useful predictors of college success and could pluck diamonds in the rough out of otherwise average applications — when used as one factor among broader admissions criteria.

Wait, what?

Then why am I against returning to these tests? Because the part of that report we are ignoring is that it also found that the University of California can do better than the SAT or the ACT. Saul Geiser, a UC Berkeley professor and a top expert on this issue, says the task force report was flawed because it failed to account for factors including family income and parent education. He calls the SAT “antithetical” to the mission of UCs and says that it is an “illusion” to think bringing them back would do anything but hurt diversity.

“Unlike private Ivy League colleges, public universities must strive to serve all sectors of the state and all segments of the population,” he told me. “The SAT, with its strong correlation with inherited privilege, is a major barrier to achieving that mission.”

The task force originally suggested that California create its own, alternative test by 2025 that would go beyond math and English to measure the persistence, resilience and determination that have always been the markers of success, in college and in life.

The pandemic and costs killed off that project, but our new era of AI has made it more possible than ever. Li Cai, a UCLA professor who was on the task force and who serves as the director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, told me that he supports bringing back standardized testing and that the test-blind decision process is a “failed” experiment — even though he voted for it six years ago.

But he also still supports a test designed by the UC system for the UC system — a test that could be free, available to take anytime at your school or local library as many times as you want, and that gives continuous feedback so students can better see their weaknesses and prepare.

“My vision has not really changed very much,” Cai told me. “A public university, a prominent one like the UC … has almost an obligation to not let the private sector take the charge in terms of intellectual leadership.”

On top of that hesitancy about the real effects of returning to the SAT is the fact that not all UC professors agree it is impossible for lacking students to catch up. Björn Birnir is the chair of the Mathematics department at UC Santa Barbara, and one of only two math chairs in the system who did not sign the open letter.

He told me that Santa Barbara sees the same deficiencies in math, especially in non-math majors, but it has found an effective way to deal with it that doesn’t involve slashing admissions based on test scores.

When students don’t have the basic skills, they are sent to the nearby community college, often over the summer, to catch up. They usually come back, he said, ready for the rigor he expects.

“These problems, they have to be addressed, but you don’t address them by reinstating the SAT,” Birnir said. “Just shutting the door is not really the best solution. We think the best way is to have a path for these students to make up deficiencies.”

Problem solved.

Bringing back the SAT may satisfy frustrated professors and parents, but it is a test that can never contend with the complicated reality of our state universities: We want them to be both world-class and a pathway for our imperfect, still-recovering kids to achieve their dreams, even if it involves summer school.

On a recent summer day at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, students ambled through yawns, braces and acne into their creative writing class. The day’s lesson tackled “style,” that elusive, ultra-subjective choice of expression.

“Who was the first author you encountered to do something different on the page?” asked the teacher, Clarke E. Andros.

They named Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein and Lemony Snicket before moving on to a précis of Joy Williams’ flash fiction. “These stories are weird — she’s weird,” Andros warned.

In some ways, high school looks much the same as it did 20, even 100 years ago: sleepy eyes either light up or glaze over when a teacher poses a Socratic question. Nervous laughs and unexpected insights emerge as young people use stories to make sense of themselves and the world around them.

(Fingerprint; Penguin Classics; Pantheon)

The idea of the “Great American Novel” took shape in the aftermath of the Civil War, when a fractured nation looked to literature to define itself. As classrooms evolved, so did the canon that reflected America’s changing identity.

But the syllabus today is at a tipping point. Forces — some visible, some harder to see — are upending literature and education itself. American students are in a decade-long reading recession, while fewer students are reading for pleasure than in previous generations.

Reading scores among high school seniors are at their lowest in decades, according to federal testing data, while schools across the country are grappling with how to respond to waning attention spans and artificial intelligence. The Los Angeles Unified School District has begun a course correction, voting to limit student use of laptops and tablets during class — the first major American school system to do so.

We spoke with five high school English teachers across the city — three from LAUSD, one from a charter and one from a private school — to find out what literature belongs in today’s classroom, and which stories can help us understand America, past and present.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Raquel Olvera, Roosevelt High School, Boyle Heights

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

In 11th-grade American Literature, as part of the LAUSD-approved Odell curriculum, we read four book options: “Friday Night Lights,” “Beloved,” “The Great Gatsby” and “The Warmth of Other Suns.” For my 10th-grade World Literature course, I like “Antigone” and “Things Fall Apart.” I also teach “In Cold Blood,” using it to explore Americans’ fascination with true crime and what the genre reveals about race, gender, class and the justice system.

(Simon & Schuster; Sky Publishing; Vintage)

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

“The Great Gatsby.” When I read it in high school, I wasn’t engaging with its undercurrents of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, gender or sexuality in the way I do now. Its themes of power, wealth, consumerism and American identity remain as relevant as ever.

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

Besides large class sizes and underfunding, I think public educators are largely battling apathy. Students and young people aren’t engaging with books like they used to. A side effect of that is a lack of empathy and curiosity. At the very least, you can model what it means to be a reader and a writer, and hope that years later, students remember that one nerd English teacher who showed them what humanity can look like.

Schehrezade Lodhy, Da Vinci Schools, El Segundo

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

Students really enjoy Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” — it’s all about the human condition and cancel culture, forbidden love and lies and deceit, with witches in the forest. In poetry, we explore a range of American voices, from Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes to Amanda Gorman, and sometimes even song lyrics. I also use “The Moth: Storytelling” podcast when students are working on personal essays. The goal is to make literature, poetry and storytelling as accessible as possible. At a charter school, we have quite a bit of autonomy with what we teach.

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” I read Baldwin a few summers ago, and that was quite an education for me. Unfortunately, some of the content is a bit too mature for high school, but I do talk about Baldwin a bit in my classes when we cover African American authors.

(Reader’s Library Classics; W. W. Norton & Company; Simon & Schuster)

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

Artificial intelligence, big time. I really pared back technology in my class, and we’ve pivoted back to paper and pencil. Going into my 18th year of teaching, my biggest goal is re-creating that experience of thinking critically for oneself and studying literature through a critical lens. We’re in this era of going back to the basics. With decreased attention spans, teachers are being forced to become even more creative. It feels like we’re reinventing ourselves every year.

Aiden Brown, John F. Kennedy High School, Granada Hills

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

From an educationally traditional background, I still believe in canon disruption — mixing the new and old. In American Lit, I’ve taught “Their Eyes Were Watching God” 11 times now. It’s a hard one to get on the first try because the vernacular is so particular, but when we read it physically while also listening to the audiobook, it’s such a great novel to hear. I pair it with bell hooks’ “All About Love.” I teach “Macbeth” from a performance-based lens, making it less intimidating. My favorite book is “Frankenstein,” written by a teenage girl who invented science fiction. My ninth-graders’ favorites were “Fahrenheit 451,” “The Odyssey” (Emily Wilson translation) and “Persepolis,” a graphic novel about a girl discovering punk rock and rebelling against the established order.

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

All of the lonely young men need to reread “The Great Gatsby,” and anyone freaked out by the state of the world should read “Parable of the Sower.” One quote from the book hangs on a poster board in my classroom: “A community’s first responsibility is to protect its children — the ones we have now and the ones we will have.”

What are English teachers up against in the classroom?

Teenagers are still the funniest people on the planet. As the world around them becomes more atomized, I find that they’re increasingly interested in connection. In the classroom, we are seeing skill loss and a decreased ability to focus on a task. I don’t think that’s just because of AI or the pandemic — it’s also phones, screens and the world kids are growing up in. One thing teachers seem to agree on is a return to pen and paper.

Clarke E. Andros, Crossroads School, Santa Monica

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

A newer addition I would recommend is “Hunger: A Novella and Stories” by Lan Samantha Chang. Especially in California, we have a lot of great Asian American literature, including works by Amy Tan, but I enjoy the writing level in Lan’s — it’s accessible to students but pushes them, all about intersectional identity and the first-gen experience. A lot of the Latino students I’ve taught in Los Angeles also connect with that book.

(Penguin Classics; Grand Central Publishing; Mariner Books Classics)

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

“Of Mice and Men.” Revisiting it today opens up deeper conversations about labor, social conciousness and power. Steinbeck creates a microcosm of American society, where disability, gender, race and class are all represented and shaped by an economic hierarchy. The characters are left navigating a world where people often turn on each other rather than challenge the systems around them. It’s novella-length, so you could read it in a Sunday morning.

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

We’re up against systems that often prioritize ed-tech and third-party vendors over smaller class sizes and more teachers. When I was at LAUSD, it was clear from our superintendent — who just stepped down over his fraud investigation — was just in bed with tech. It’s hard for me to imagine the folks in power didn’t look at [the failed AI chatbot venture] and see it as a grift.

On the flip side, at hyper-competitive, elite schools like this, students are approaching high school with college in mind rather than with high school in mind. When students understand the value of the process, they’re less likely to look for an easy shortcut like AI.

Adam Tan, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, Mid-City

What books in the American literary canon are you teaching (old and new)?

With independent reading, memoirs are big, like “Crying in H Mart” and Sylvia Plath’s fictionalized “The Bell Jar.” Younger kids gravitate to “Musashi,” a celebrated epic based on a famous samurai. We have a lot of Korean American students here, so they like “Pachinko,” dealing with racism and the Korean population in post-World War II Japan. I’ll also throw in “The Bluest Eye.”

In ninth grade, we read “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Of Mice and Men,” “The Thief and the Dogs” and “Romeo and Juliet,” with the film adaptations to use media literacy. In American Literature, the major texts are “The Great Gatsby,” “The Things They Carried” and “The Crucible.” We also read nonfiction articles, including pieces on AI and robots, while focusing on rhetorical devices.

(Blackstone Publishing; Knopf; Little, Brown and Company)

What’s one work from the canon adults should revisit today?

“The Catcher in the Rye” benefits from the distance of adulthood. It’s a novel about disillusionment and the search for identity, but when you revisit it, you also see that it’s very much a love story. I often encourage students to look for forms of love beyond romance — love for family, friends and fellow human beings. Even today, students can tell you that the biggest phony in the book is Holden himself. The novel reminds us that while literature may not have answers to the world’s problems, it can help us examine our wounds and find solace in art.

What are English teachers up against in the classroom in 2026?

A lack of accountability in the modern world. In general, we have a school district focused on 100% graduation rates, no F’s. [LAUSD] wanted everything on computer, and now they want less computer time, which is great, but not everyone at top management is on the same page. Teachers are often trying to balance what the district wants with what we know our students need.

What I try to instill instead is an intrinsic desire to grow as a thinker. How do you make sure students are reading without taking the joy out of it? A lot of us are going back to pen and paper. Despite all the concerns about AI, I still think the soul and spirit of young people is as strong as ever. The core is not rotting.

Andrés Chait has been named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District three days after the resignation of Alberto Carvalho in a lightning-speed transition that elevates a well-liked insider to the top of the nation’s second-largest school system.

The Board of Education announced its unanimous decision Wednesday, which was made official during the board’s last scheduled meeting before August.

“I firmly believe in leading with gratitude and never taking the work and support of others for granted,” Chait said after the announcement. “So I begin today in that spirit of gratitude. Thank you to the board for your faith in me and for this opportunity.”

“I have always known that there is no greater accelerator of change and opportunity than the school house, and that is still true today,” Chait added. “Throughout my career in various roles, that has remained my focus. How I can be of service and support to our students and families in accessing these opportunities. Please know that commitment has not changed.”

Chait had been serving as acting superintendent since Feb. 27, two days after the FBI raided the home and office of his predecessor, Carvalho. Law enforcement sources have confirmed that the ongoing investigation includes a review of Carvalho’s actions related to a company hired to create an ill-fated AI chatbot. Carvalho has not been charged and maintains that he is innocent of wrongdoing.

Chait’s style and background stands in sharp contrast to Carvalho‘s, who had 14 years of experience leading one of the nation’s largest school systems in Miami.

Carvalho carefully curated his appearances — before and during his L.A. tenure he maintained a high national profile as a sought-after voice in education. In 2018, he had accepted the job leading the school system in New York City before changing his mind and staying in Miami. He was a familiar face in national conclaves on education and among national leaders. He took charge in L.A. in February 2022.

Chait is a district parent who started off as a kindergarten teacher at Queen Anne Place Elementary School and rose gradually through the ranks. He has never worked in another school system, although his experience in L.A. Unified included a variety of roles, including elementary school principal, regional superintendent. Most recently he served as director of operations — a non-academic function — for the entire school system.

Chait was not among the phalanx of senior officials who sat directly behind the school board on the elevated stage during board meetings. Instead, Chait’s was stationed in the back next to the audiovisual equipment, where he was off camera and frequently able to joke and interact with other district staff and community members. He’d also sometimes deal directly with a community member or employee who brought forward a personal problem or issue during the public hearing portion of a board meeting.

Over the last two years, Chait has presented periodically at board meetings, including over such issues as school safety.

The announcement was made by school board President Scott Schmerelson after the board emerged from a closed session.

“This board’s decision reflects the confidence in Mr. Chait’s leadership, his decades of service to Los Angeles Unified, and his demonstrated ability to guide the district during this period of transition,” Schmerelson said. “Throughout his career, and most recently as acting superintendent, he has shown deep commitment to our students, families, employees, and school communities.”

The decision to offer the job to Chait was not entirely a surprise because he already had taken on key tasks typically handled by a long-term superintendent. These included finishing up a four-year strategic plan and selecting administrators to fill key senior positions.

The Board of Education approved a four-year strategic plan Tuesday with academic targets and measures of college, career and social-emotional readiness.

Chait also received good marks from board members and union leaders during a trial-by-fire experience with a labor dispute that came within hours of a three-union strike that would have shut down the school system.

Chait was a key participant in getting to a deal, along with Mayor Karen Bass.

“It was wonderful to have the cooperation from the leadership of the district, from the superintendent, from the school board, from the entire school board, all of that … made a difference,” Bass said in a City Hall news conference, referring to Chait, after the all-nighter.

Leaders of the three unions each praised Chait at the time.

“I want to give you a thanks, Superintendent Chait, for showing humanity. Humanity. Humanity for seeing us, seeing the workers, and believing that you can get it across the finish line,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, the outgoing president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

Last week, Myart-Cruz said in an interview that Carvalho needed to be replaced and that Chait appeared to have the skills needed to take over — although she said she would prefer a formal selection process that included input from labor leaders and others.

Max Arias, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 99, also praised Chait after the contract was settled.

“I want to appreciate you … for coming into a very difficult situation and stepping in and showing leadership,” Arias said. “We are ready, our members are ready, to always give a chance to building relationship or partnership.”

Interviewed last week, Arias said Chait should be offered the job outright — that a search process was unnecessary.

Also praising Chait during that April gathering in City Hall was Maria Nichols, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents schools principals and assistant principals among others.

“Thank you so much for listening,” Nichols said. “I know the acting superintendent’s style — collaborative, listens. He takes action. He’s humane, and he wants the best for our students, because he’s a parent and has students in LAUSD.”

The deals accepted by Chait also have critics, who contend is it more than the district can afford.

This $20.6-billion spending plan that was approved Tuesday incorporates the layoffs of up to several hundred workers with due-process rights and perhaps 1,000 more without job protections. Over the next three years, officials project thousands of additional layoffs.

The spending plan for the 2026-27 school year is nearly $2 billion higher than last year’s figure of $18.8 billion. The district’s projected revenue is $18.6 billion, although that figure could rise based on promising state tax revenues.

In the meantime, the district will cover the shortfall with reserves, which may or may not be exhausted over the next two to three years. The increased spending results largely from significant salary increases, maintaining health benefits amid rising costs and expanding the number of part-time employees eligible for benefits.

Also straining the budget has been the expiration of COVID-relief funds, inflation surpassing state funding increases and steadily declining enrollment. L.A. Unified, with about 390,000 students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade, is about half as large as in the early 2000s.

The board did not immediately release details of the new superintendent’s contract, including the length of the term, on the grounds that is not yet in final form.

Chait’s salary as acting superintendent was $395,867. He also has received $250 per month for expenses and the use of a district car and driver for work-related activities. In his previous job as chief of school operations, which he held for about 20 months, Chait had earned $278,205.

Carvalho’s salary was $440,000 per year with an additional $50,000 paid annually into a retirement annuity. District officials have so far declined to say if Carvalho received a severance package.

Carvalho’s predecessor as permanent superintendent, Austin Beutner, was paid $350,000 per year.

June 24 (UPI) — On July 1, student loan servicers will begin notifying borrowers enrolled in SAVE repayment plans that they must switch to a new plan and borrower advocates warn that what comes next will likely be an increase in defaults and delinquencies.

Not all borrowers will receive a notice on July 1. In fact, many will not. The notices will be staggered across the millions of people enrolled in the SAVE program over the coming months. Once a borrower receives their notice, the clock starts on a 90-day window for them to enroll in an eligible repayment plan.

If a SAVE enrollee fails to switch to another repayment plan, they will be automatically enrolled in a standard repayment plan, which will carry a higher monthly payment requirement. In many cases, that plan will not be their most affordable option.

Betsy Mayotte, president and founder of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, told UPI that the borrowers her organization hears from are more frequently expressing confusion over which plan is best for them.

“We’ve seen borrowers whose SAVE payment was $40 and their next lowest payment on a new plan is $400,” Mayotte said.

For many borrowers, they will be able to switch plans directly on the Federal Student Aid website. In most cases, this will be the simplest way to switch, Mayotte said. However, in some cases, this can create problems with unduly high payment requirements due to a glitch in the Department of Education’s website.

People who are married with both spouses having student loans may be assigned double the payment when applying through the Federal Student Aid site, Mayotte said. What the partners would pay together is misapplied to each spouse, effectively doubling their required payments.

What is supposed to happen, Mayotte said, is that the spouses apply together and their payment is “portioned out” considering both of their loans and incomes. Instead, the glitch is causing the amount not to be portioned, requiring each spouse to make that full payment.

Mayotte added that this glitch is not obvious to the borrower when they go through the application process, meaning it can fly under their radar.

In these cases, borrowers are advised to discuss their repayment options directly with their student loan servicer.

Borrowers who do not have new student loans after July 1 will continue to have access to the old income-driven repayment plans until July 1, 2028, when those programs end.

July 1 also brings about the deadline for Parent PLUS loan borrowers to consolidate their loans to be eligible for enrollment in an Income-Driven Repayment plan. New Parent PLUS loans taken out after this deadline, or loans that are not consolidated before it, will not have access to Income-Driven Repayment plans.

For Parent PLUS loans that have been consolidated, borrowers must enroll in an Income-Driven Repayment plan by July 1, 2028, or they will forfeit their eligibility.

Beginning with the coming school year, Parent PLUS loans will be capped at $65,000 total per student with two parents. Each student will have a separate $65,000 cap.

With the SAVE plan’s end, Mayotte said she expects defaults and delinquencies to rise. She said the borrowers who have historically been least likely to default are those who have made 12 to 24 payments consecutively on time.

The COVID-19 pandemic took about 40 million people out of that habit, Mayotte said.

“We had 3 million default in the last quarter of 2025,” she said. “I think the SAVE transition is going to continue that trend because people have no plan they can afford.”

“There are two big factors,” Mayotte continued. “One is lifestyle creep. They haven’t had to pay for two years and lifestyle creep happens. The other thing that’s happened is they were told their payment was going to be ‘x’ on SAVE and they made other financial decisions around that. If you’re told your payment’s going to be $100 on SAVE and then you budget to buy a house — all of the sudden your payment is not $100 a month, it’s $400 a month, you can’t take back that mortgage.”

Meanwhile, the cost of living has increased on all fronts in the United States.

“Payments are resuming at a higher rate for borrowers at the same time health insurance has gone up, gas prices, groceries, produce has gone up like 43% in the last three months,” Mayotte said. “It’s like a perfect storm, especially for low-income and middle-class families as far as expenses go.”

Amy Czulada, senior adviser for outreach and engagement with the Student Borrower Protection Center, told UPI that the difference between the SAVE plan and the next most affordable plans available for enrollees is “astronomical.”

The Trump administration is launching the Repayment Assistance Plan on July 1. It is a new income-based repayment plan approved by Congress last summer. It and the Income-Based Repayment plan will be the only plans based on income available to borrowers starting July 1, 2028, and the only plans for borrowers with new loans after July 1 this year.

About 3 million borrowers are enrolled in income-driven repayment plans that will sunset in 2028.

In its analysis of the RAP plan, the Student Borrowers Protection Center estimates that the average borrower with a college degree will pay more than $4,000 per year more in student loan payments.

“The difference in payments is just beyond anything folks are able to handle at the moment,” Czulada said.

The Student Borrower Protection Center, a student loan borrower advocacy organization, warns that the deadline for borrowers to pick new plans threatens to push borrowers back into a “broken and corrupt servicing system.”

The organization published its report “Repeat Offenders” earlier this month, detailing allegedly illegal acts and practices carried out by student loan servicers that exploit borrowers. Practices such as deliberately long wait times on phone calls, not providing borrowers with all the relevant information they need to plan their payments, illegally denying applications for affordable payment plans and deceiving borrowers to collect maximum interest rate charges.

The report also highlights that student loans changing hands across servicers, along with shifts in the Department of Education, creates opportunities for borrowers to be taken advantage of, have applications lost, payment histories misapplied and other shortfalls in service to borrowers.

“Folks often think they are conversing directly with the Department of Education,” Czulada said. “So there’s a lot of white labeling going on where these contractors are the ones interfacing with, but folks don’t necessarily know or understand that.”

Federal management of student loans is currently being moved from the Department of Education to the U.S. Treasury Department.

“What that has led to is that there’s not really a functioning federal student aid office that can take complaints and really dive into what the issues are,” Czulada said. “Borrowers are left really susceptible to all these practices and limited oversight and accountability.”

In March, the Government Accountability Office issued its review of Federal Student Aid’s monitoring of student loan servicers. It found that the FSA had stopped reviewing the accuracy of servicers’ records in February 2025, because of a lack of staff.

The Department of Education and other government agencies reduced staff broadly in 2025 under recommendations by the Trump administration’s short-lived Department of Government Efficiency, led by the world’s first trillionaire Elon Musk.

Nelnet and Mohela are the largest loan servicers contracted with the Department of Education.

Nelnet manages more than 12 million accounts worth more than $480 billion. It has received $3.1 billion in payments from the department since 2009.

In 2024, a Senate investigation found that more than 1.4 million duplicate student loan records appeared on borrowers’ credit reports when loans were transferred from Mohela to Nelnet. Earlier that year, the company was fined $1.8 million by the attorney general of Massachusetts for failing to keep borrowers in affordable repayment plans, stopping them from progressing toward student loan forgiveness.

Czulada said during the pandemic student loan servicers notoriously allowed borrowers to defer payments or enter forbearance rather than informing them about repayment options that would have counted toward loan forgiveness.

Mohela manages more than 7 million student loan accounts worth more than $318 billion and has received $1.54 billion in payments from the Department of Education since 2011. At least 347,000 of its borrowers are at least three payments behind and more than 75,000 defaulted last year.

More than 41,000 complaints were issued against the company by borrowers last year.

Mohela is rated by FSA as the servicer with the longest wait times for borrowers calling its service lines. Borrowers wait for 13 minutes on average to connect with a representative at Mohela and about 14% abandon their calls before reaching someone.

When callers do get through, Czulada said they are often redirected to other representatives or sent to webpages that do not function.

The American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit against Mohela in 2024 and has amended its complaints as recently as January. It alleges that the servicer and five more of the biggest student loan services have engaged in a call deflection scheme and have systemically delivered poor service to customers trying to stay in compliance with loan repayments.

“These companies are just continuing to get more money from the Department of Education for giving us the same terrible service over time,” Czulada said. “This has been really harmful to a lot of people. Like millions of people. Nothing is better evidenced by that than having almost 10 million people in default right now and almost another million careening towards default. In 2020 we also had a record number of people in default before the pandemic began. Moving back to the status quo is also not really an option.”

On this date in history:

In 1846, two amateur baseball teams played under new rules at Hoboken, N.J., planting the first seeds of organized baseball. The New York Nine beat the Knickerbockers, 23-1.

In 1856, the first Republican national convention ended in Philadelphia with the nomination of explorer John Charles Fremont of California for president. James Buchanan, a Federalist nominated by the Democrats, was elected.

In 1864, the Union sloop-of-war USS Kearsarge sank the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama in the Battle of Cherbourg off the coast of France.

In 1865, nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, freedom from slavery was announced in Galveston, Texas, the most remote area of the country where slavery was still practiced. The day came to be celebrated annually as Juneteenth, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and Liberation Day.

In 1867, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, installed as emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864, was executed on the orders of Benito Juarez, president of the Mexican Republic.

In 1905, Pittsburgh showman Harry Davis opened the world’s first nickelodeon, showing “The Great Train Robbery,” a silent Western film. The storefront theater had 96 seats, charged 5 cents and prompted the advent of movie houses across the United States.

In 1910, Spokane, Wash., had the first Father’s Day.

File Photo by Gary C. Caskey/UPI

In 1944, World War II’s Battle of the Philippine Sea began. Japanese forces tried unsuccessfully to prevent further Allied advancement in the South Pacific.

In 1953, convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.

In 1965, Nguyen Cao Ky became the prime minister of South Vietnam, the ninth leader within the past 20 months.

UPI File Photo

In 1972, Hurricane Agnes made landfall in the Florida Panhandle, going on to kill 128 people along the eastern U.S. seaboard.

In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1981 Louisiana law that required schools to teach the creationist theory of human origin espoused by fundamentalist Christians.

In 1991, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar surrendered to police in Medellin in the wake of the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan. Authorities convinced him to give himself up in exchange for a lighter sentence for prior criminal activity — activity which continued after his imprisonment.

In 1999, horror novelist Stephen King was hit by a car and severely injured while out for a walk in rural Maine.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prayers led by students at public high school football games aren’t permitted under the constitutional separation of church and state. In 2022, the high court ruled, however, that a school district in Washington violated a coach’s First Amendment rights when they stopped him from publicly praying on the field after games.

In 2008, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, became the first candidate at that level to bypass public financing since the program was established.

In 2013, James Gandolfini, who starred in the gangster drama The Sopranos, died of a heart attack in Rome. He was 51.

In 2014, Felipe VI was proclaimed Spain’s new king after his father, King Juan Carlos, abdicated the throne.

In 2019, Joy Harjo was named the first Native American poet laureate of the United States.

In 2024, the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, concluded after at least 1,300 people died over the five-day trek. Officials blamed a lack of cooling centers, sleeping accommodations and other critical services as temperatures soared above 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

File Photo by Mohammad Kheirkhah/UPI

A viral youth satirical protest movement, the Cockroach Janta Party, has emerged following exam cancellations last month.

India has blocked the Telegram messaging app until Monday and ordered the platform to disable the editing feature on messages already posted, saying the platform has been used to “defraud candidates” and for “paper leaks” regarding upcoming national student examinations.

The restriction was issued on Tuesday under a stringent provision of the IT law, which empowers the government to block access to online sites in the interest of India’s “sovereignty and integrity”.

Activists said the provision is used to curb free speech although Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said it ‌acts in compliance with the law and in the public interest.

Last month, the government cancelled a key undergraduate entrance exam for medical schools known as the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) after authorities discovered the questions had been leaked beforehand.

The leaks led to a series of student protests across the country, including the emergence of a satirical viral movement, the Cockroach Janta Party, that demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The government has scheduled a new examination for Sunday.

The restrictions on Telegram were imposed “in ⁠response to the organised use of the platform by cheating rackets to defraud candidates ⁠appearing for the NEET 2026 re-examination scheduled on 21 June 2026”, the Ministry of Education’s National Testing Agency said in a statement.

Telegram has grown rapidly ⁠in India, and the country is its biggest market for downloads although WhatsApp remains the dominant messaging platform.

The government said ⁠it “regrets the inconvenience caused” due to the blocking of the application, which will affect hundreds of thousands of people, but it said it is a measure of “last resort” as earlier attempts to take down content from the platform had not produced results.

German art student Miriam Wiskemann has won a year-long right-of-use agreement for the uninhabited island of Marsten off Sweden’s west coast – but there is a major catch

Starting next Monday, 27-year-old art student Miriam Wiskemann will become the sole guardian of an uninhabited island situated off Sweden’s coastline. The diminutive island of Marsten, measuring just 180 metres by 50 metres, attracts kayakers and paddle boarders throughout the summer season, but for most of the year remains the exclusive territory of a cormorant colony.

The only stipulation is that Miriam must relinquish her title in June 2027. She is among a handful of fortunate winners of a competition organised by Visit Sweden. According to Visit Sweden’s website, the initiative aimed to demonstrate that “true luxury isn’t about excess, but rather about time, space and balance”.

Miriam and four other individuals from across the globe will be granted a year-long right-of-use agreement alongside a travel voucher worth 20,000 Swedish krona – approximately £1,590. The prize doesn’t include permanent residency, as there are no structures on the island.

Miriam, who is pursuing a degree in art, intends to spend some time on Marsten in September, collecting inspiration for her final creative project for her illustration degree. She remarks: “The main prize is actually the journey there.”

Miriam, originally from Dusseldorf in Germany, is currently studying at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design. She reveals she aspires to eventually pursue a master’s degree in Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm.

The art student, who has actually lived in Sweden for a year, explained to German news agency dpa: “Sweden just has a more relaxed pace of life that I’ve often found myself missing in Germany. This trip is all I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of this term.”

“I’ll take time to cycle around the island and draw a lot of inspiration from my surroundings,” she said. “Having this luxury of being able to travel there will definitely have a big influence on me.

“The Swedish nature and the stark differences of the seasons have always really inspired me and my art,” she added.

Marsten sits amongst a cluster of islands located roughly four miles from Sweden’s western coastline. With over 267,000 islands dotted along the Swedish shores, a key objective of the competition was to spotlight these hidden gems.

VisitSweden’s “Your Swedish Island” campaign attracted almost 2,500 applications from 100 countries. The other winners hail from Canada, the US, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Each successful applicant will serve as guardian of their own remote island for the coming year.

Love Island have confirmed the first three singletons for the upcoming series, and it’s set to get even hotter this summer with a DJ being thrown into the mix

Love Island is back – and the first singletons have been revealed. These include Robyn, a quantity surveyor and DJ, Lorenzo, a businessman and Mica, a student from Barbados who lives in London.

The series is just days away from starting, with a fresh batch of singletons hoping to find the love of their life in the Majorcan villa during the summer of love and ITV is pulling out all the stops this year. But one thing is certain, one singleton will not be played by any men in the villa.

Liverpudlian Robyn, 21, a quantity surveyor and DJ, says that everybody in the villa will be equal and she’s hoping that nobody will think they’re better than another person. She said of the type of person she doesn’t want to meet: “Someone full of themselves or someone who thinks they’re better than everyone. You’re never better than anyone next to you. Also, people who eat with their mouth open – it’s a no from me.”

But Robyn has her eyes firmly set on one type of man, although she admits she finds personalities attractive too. She’s hoping to meet a man who is “tall, fair, muscles, nice teeth, pretty boy.” A situationship is also off the cards for her. She explained: “Finding love is my only goal. There may be a little bit of drama but I’m going in there for myself so I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. But I would like to think I’m a girl’s girl and that I handle situations quite well. I’ve got a mature brain.”

Robyn also says she won’t be quick to jump into a relationship; instead, she wants to really get to know her next partner. She explained: “I like to observe first. I wouldn’t say I’m a slow burner, but I like to take in someone’s personality, how they carry themselves, and how they interact with other people. I won’t just rush into something; I have to genuinely like someone. And I’m an absolute star, they’ve got to tick all the boxes before they even have a chance with me.”

And that leads us on to business owner Lorenzo, 28, from Hertfordshire. He admits he’s looking for a blonde girl, but hasn’t ruled out any other hair colours. And he’s partial to dating a “posh girl”. Lorenzo admits he has a “niche” attraction to one part of a woman’s body – her arms.

“I don’t know why,” he said, adding: “It’s really strange! Imagine like a Jessica Alba or an Angelina Jolie kind of arm and neck, I find that very elegant. Very niche, I know!”

And like Robyn, he has no time for ill-mannered people; instead, he prefers high maintenance when it’s “done right”. “If someone is rude with it and not good fun or good vibes, I’d find that quite irritating,” he commented. But unlike Robyn, Lorenzo admits he’s hoping for drama in the villa.

“As long as no one is crying, all is fair in love and war,” he said. Speaking of the competition he’ll be up against, he went on to say: “I’m very much a self-deprecating person, so if I and another guy were interested in the same girl, I’d encourage her to go and speak to him, that’s how I’d navigate the situation. Sometimes it ends up working, reverse psychology!”

Mica, 21, a student from Barbados but living in London, says she’s after a tall man, as she’s quite tall herself. “I like a little bit of a buffer, a bigger guy,” she said, adding that personality is most important when it comes to finding a boyfriend.

One type of person she will not entertain is an “egotistical cringey” man; instead, she wants her boyfriend to be totally obsessed with her. And although she’s looking for love, she also wants drama. She revealed: “Obviously the whole point is finding love and that’s going to be my main goal. I’m not saying I’m going to start drama but if there is drama going on, I would obviously be a little bit nosey and want to know what’s going on.”

And she’s not going to hold back on the quest to find a partner. “If I have my eyes set on someone, obviously I’m going to pursue them,” she disclosed, before adding: “But if they’re not reciprocating that then I’m going to take a step back, have a think, and change directions and think about who else I could explore with.”

Love Island returns Monday 1st June at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX

May 21 (Asia Today) — The number of multicultural students in South Korea topped 200,000 for the first time last year, even as the country’s overall youth population continued to decline, government data showed Wednesday.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family released its 2026 youth statistics, covering 36 indicators in eight areas, to mark Youth Month in May.

The data showed the number of multicultural students reached 202,208 last year, up 4.3% from a year earlier. They accounted for 4% of all students.

Elementary school students made up 57.7% of multicultural students, followed by middle school students at 25.3% and high school students at 16.6%.

South Korea’s youth population, defined as people ages 9 to 24, stood at 7.409 million this year, accounting for 14.4% of the total population. That was down from 7.626 million, or 14.8%, last year.

Education indicators showed mixed trends. Seven in 10 students said they enjoyed going to school, up 1 percentage point from the previous year. The share was highest among elementary school students at 79.2%, followed by middle school students at 71.9% and high school students at 69.2%.

The private education participation rate among elementary, middle and high school students fell to 75.7%, down 4.3 percentage points from a year earlier. Average weekly time spent in private education also declined by 30 minutes to 7.1 hours.

The school dropout rate edged up to 1.1%, while the share of high school graduates advancing to higher education in South Korea or abroad rose to 74.4%.

Labor data showed the employment rate for people ages 15 to 29 was 45.0% in 2025, down 1.1 percentage points from the previous year. The unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.1%.

Among middle and high school students, 5.1% said they had worked part-time during the past year.

Income was the top factor young people considered when choosing a job. Teenagers and young adults ages 13 to 24 ranked income first, followed by aptitude and interest, then job stability.

Large companies were the most preferred workplaces, followed by government agencies and public corporations.

The share of young people prioritizing income has steadily increased since 2013, when it stood at 27.0%. The trend was stronger among male youths at 42.8% than female youths at 35.9%. Women were more likely than men to cite aptitude and interest as a key factor.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

California and a coalition of other Democratic-led states are suing the Trump administration over new limits on federal borrowing by aspiring nurses, physician’s assistants, therapists, social workers, mental health practitioners and other healthcare workers, arguing the changes will further reduce a struggling but vital workforce.

“This case is about protecting access to education, protecting our healthcare workforce, and protecting patients who rely on these providers every single day,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said during a virtual news conference Tuesday. “The Trump administration is going out of its way to make it harder and more expensive for students to pursue the advanced degrees necessary to serve their communities and pursue meaningful careers that allow them to support themselves and their families.”

Bonta said the new limits on loans sought by nursing and other healthcare students — which the U.S. Department of Education initiated in response to Republicans passing broader student loan caps as part of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — was an illegal overreach by the agency that was “deeply shortsighted” and went beyond the scope of the legislation.

“Congress can act,” he said. “But what the Department of Education can’t do is — contrary to law and in an arbitrary and capricious way and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act — redefine what a professional student is.”

In response to the litigation, Trump administration officials defended the new rules, saying they will help student borrowers in the long run by driving down schooling costs at universities nationwide and preventing them from taking on too much debt.

“After decades of unchecked student loan borrowing that gave schools no reason to control costs, these commonsense loan caps — created by Congress — are already incentivizing colleges and universities to lower tuition,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement to The Times.

Kent said Bonta and his fellow Democratic litigants “are more concerned about institutions’ bottom-line [than] American students and families’ ability to access affordable postsecondary education.” As one example of institutions responding to loan caps by lowering costs, Kent pointed to UC Irvine reducing the costs of its master’s in business programs by up to 38% to keep them below a federal loan cap for such programs.

The One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by Congress in July 2025, placed new limits on student loans, which could previously be sought for the full cost of such degrees. Starting this July, applicants categorized as “graduate students” will be capped at borrowing $20,500 per year and $100,000 in total, while applicants categorized as “professional students” will be allowed to borrow up to $50,000 annually and $200,000 in total.

On May 1, the U.S. Department of Education issued a new rule defining the “professional student” category as including those pursuing degrees to become doctors, pharmacists, dentists, veterinarians, lawyers, various medical specialists, pastors and other religious academics, and excluding those pursuing nursing and other advanced healthcare degrees.

In announcing the change, Kent said it would “simplify our complex student loan repayment system and better align higher education with workforce needs,” “drive a sea change in higher education by holding universities accountable for outcomes and putting significant downward pressure on the cost of tuition,” and “benefit borrowers who will no longer be pushed into insurmountable debt to finance degrees that do not pay off.”

Others fiercely disagreed, including healthcare industry leaders who also had objected to the rule change during a public comment period. Some said the changes would simply increase student reliance on less favorable, private-sector loans.

The American Assn. of Colleges of Nursing, in a statement, said it and its members were “angered by the Department of Education’s failure to support the nursing profession as the demand for patient care services rises.”

Nearly 150 members of Congress — including more than a dozen Republicans — wrote a letter the day after the rule was promulgated expressing “disappointment” over the exclusion of post-baccalaureate nursing degrees.

“At a time when our nation is facing a health care shortage, especially in primary care, now is not the time to cut off the student pipeline to these programs,” the lawmakers argued.

Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the University of California, which is not party to the lawsuit but operates a vast network of public health programs, said in a statement Tuesday that UC “strongly opposed” the administration’s new caps on federal loans for nurses and other health professionals, which she said “will be felt most strongly by lower-income graduate students.”

“UC will continue to do all we can to ensure that cost is not a barrier for anyone who wants to pursue higher education, and we will continue to advocate with our federal partners for the programs and policies that make this possible,” Zaentz said.

Bonta rejected the administration’s argument that the new caps would help students pursuing a dream of a medical career avoid taking on too much debt — calling it “tone deaf.” He said those students are already “struggling with all costs right now” thanks to the Trump administration’s tariffs, war in Iran and lax approach to regulating monopolies and other big business.

He also rejected the idea that the new loan caps would force institutions to reduce costs for students, calling that “wishful thinking.”

The lawsuit is the 68th filed by Bonta’s office against the second Trump administration. Joining Bonta in the lawsuit — which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Maryland — were the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.