“The rate of new international students enrolment at US universities dropped by 17% this autumn compared to previous years, research released on Monday indicates. The drop comes as the Trump administration has made it more difficult to obtain student visas, with the research suggesting visa application issues like delays and denials are among the top reasons for the decline in first-time students. The survey found a modest overall 1% decline in international students when taking into account students who have been in the US for years. Foreign students make up about 6% of total US enrollment and contributed $55bn (£41bn) to the economy, according to 2024 figures from the commerce department. The survey by the Institute of International Education examined the population of international students at 828 higher education institutions.” (11/17/25)
“In a memo to staff on October 30, Avelo Airlines’ head of flight operations Scott Hall painted a rosy, if defensive, picture of the company’s future. Avelo’s financial strategy was working, he said. The company had a big contract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to do charter deportation flights … Sure, shutting down their entire West Coast operation looked bad, but it was good, actually, a long-planned move toward efficiency that had nothing to do with the ‘outrage mob’ boycotting Avelo for its association with ICE. … The truth is much more bleak: Avelo’s ICE flights appear to be a fiasco, defined by the poor planning, cruel treatment, and serious safety lapses endemic to ‘ICE Air,’ the network of charter carriers and military planes that transport shackled migrants to detention facilities and out of the country.” (11/17/25)
“U.S. immigration agents [abducted] more than 130 people in a weekend sweep through North Carolina’s largest city, a federal official said Monday, as the governor warned that the crackdown is simply ‘stoking fear.’ The Trump administration has made Charlotte, a Democratic city of about 950,000 people, its latest focus for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime, despite fierce objections from local leaders and declining crime rates. City residents reported encounters with immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores. … Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Border Patrol officers had [abducted] ‘over 130 illegal [sic] aliens, who have all broken’ immigration laws [sic].” (11/17/25)
“We are all owed a better explanation from the FBI and Secret Service about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump 16 months ago at a campaign rally in Butler, PA. The president himself remains unsatisfied with the answers he’s been given about the circumstances leading to 20-year-old Thomas Crooks climbing on a rooftop with an AR-15-style rifle and firing eight times at Trump, narrowly missing his head but hitting his ear. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper, but not before he killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore, 50, and seriously wounded David Dutch, 58, and James Copenhaver, 75, who were sitting in the bleachers behind Trump. There is something very wrong with the official story and that invites conspiracy theories. The president demanded answers months ago. A man was murdered. What is going on?” (11/17/25)
“Ecuador’s voters on Sunday delivered a major blow to right-wing President Daniel Noboa by decisively rejecting the proposed return of foreign military bases to the South American country’s soil—including installations run by the United States. Around two-thirds of voters opposed the measure with most ballots tallied, a result that was widely seen as a surprise. Voters also rejected a separate effort to rewrite the country’s progressive 2008 constitution, which enshrined strong labor and environmental rights. The stinging defeat for Noboa, an ally of US President Donald Trump, comes as the United States carries out an aggressive military buildup and deadly airstrike campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific—and weighs a direct attack on Venezuela.” (11/17/25)
“An Indiana homeowner accused of killing a house cleaner was charged Monday with voluntary manslaughter in a case that raises questions about the limits of stand-your-ground laws. Curt Anderson, 62, could face anywhere from 10 to 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if he’s convicted. He was being held in the Boone County Jail pending an initial court hearing. His attorney, Guy Relford, did not respond to voice messages seeking comment. Officers found Maria Florinda Rios Perez De Velasquez, 32, dead on the front porch of a home in Whitestown, an Indianapolis suburb, on Nov. 5. Authorities said the Guatemalan immigrant was part of a cleaning crew that had gone to the wrong house just before 7 a.m. Her husband told media outlets that he was with her on the porch and someone fired through the front door.” (11/17/25)
“Ahead of this November’s Cop30 climate summit, to be held in Belém, Brazil — the gateway to the Amazon River — United Nations Secretary General António Guterres delivered a stark statement: ‘Let’s recognize our failure. The truth is that we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5 degrees [Celsius] in the next few years. And that going above 1.5 degrees has devastating consequences.’ Guterres’s remarks came just as Hurricane Melissa was making landfall in Jamaica as one of the most powerful Atlantic basin storms in recorded history. And it came after a year of other grim milestones: the devastating wildfires that struck Los Angeles in January and Canada in May, lethal flash floods from Argentina to Texas and heatwaves in India and Pakistan that brought temperatures up to 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit), leading to crop failures.” (11/17/25)
Source: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
by Drew Favakeh
“For years, there have been whispers that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who had ties to key officials in the US and foreign governments, was involved with Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad. However, the Epstein/Mossad ties were often labeled by US corporate media as ‘unfounded’ … dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’ … or said to have been ‘largely manufactured by paranoiacs and attention seekers and credulous believers’ …. It’s true that far-right antisemites like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have promoted a conspiratorial version of the Epstein/Israel connection as part of their bigoted, attention-seeking narratives. But recent investigations by Drop Site News into a major hack targeting Israel revealed that Epstein did play a significant role in brokering multiple deals for Israeli intelligence.” (11/15/25)
“U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday rolled back tariffs on more than 200 food products, including such staples as coffee, beef, bananas and orange juice, in the face of growing angst among American consumers about the high cost of groceries. The new exemptions — which took effect retroactively at midnight on Thursday — mark a sharp reversal for Trump, who has long insisted that the sweeping import duties he imposed earlier this year are not fueling inflation. ‘They may in some cases’ raise prices, Trump said of his tariffs when asked about the move aboard Air Force One on Friday evening. But he insisted that overall, the U.S. has ‘virtually no inflation.’ Democrats have won a string of victories in state and local elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City, where growing voter concerns about affordability, including high food prices, were a key topic.” (11/15/25)
“The world’s largest shopping event, Singles’ Day, was again held Nov. 11 in China – though the online bargains began weeks earlier, as is the case with Black Friday sales in other parts of the world. This year, however, the event was not just a commercial gala. China’s annual shopping spree, which began in 2009 in earnest, no longer focuses on singles. (The date 11.11 resembles ‘bare sticks’ in Chinese, an idiom for being unhitched.) The unofficial holiday of mass consumption is now a key economic indicator: Whether or not the world’s second-largest economy will fall into a downward spiral of falling prices, or deflation. Early reports from China’s giant e-commerce firms suggest spending for Singles’ Day was not enough to trigger a rise in retail prices and thus help end more than two years of declining prices.” (11/14/25)
