David Sherfinski

As the United States pursues its immigration crackdown, the administration of President Donald Trump is also seeking major overhauls to worker visas intended for specialty occupations like the technology industry.

The Trump administration in mid-September proposed a new $100,000 fee for visa applications and changes that would favour higher-paying jobs.

Vilas Dhar is the president of the U.S.-based Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a global philanthropy that is working to expand the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) aimed at helping under-represented groups and promoting equity.

Dhar, through the foundation, has helped steer more than $500 million in commitments to groups advancing public health, education, climate action and democratic governance as it seeks to promote the responsible use of AI. 

Representatives of nearly every government in the world are expected at the global COP30 summit, scheduled next month in Brazil's Amazonian city of Belém, to discuss and share their efforts to curb climate change.

Many countries face major decisions on how to move towards keeping greenhouse gas emission levels in line with the Paris Agreement – an accord Trump has announced the U.S. is ditching.

In a forthcoming book, Eram Alam, assistant professor of the history of science at Harvard University, examines an often overlooked but vital part of American healthcare: foreign-born doctors, many of whom emigrated from South Asian countries like India.

Chronicling an influx after the passage of a 1965 immigration law, Alam explores the often fraught relationship between the United States and doctors who come from abroad to fill labour shortages, many of whom end up settling in vulnerable communities that are also hostile to immigrants.

President Donald Trump's decision to downplay or outright delete issues and data tied to climate change is raising fears of a wider push to quash debate with dire consequences on scientific research, experts say.

Trump last month dismissed climate change as a "con job" – now his Department of Energy (DoE) is reportedly telling staff to avoid using language that runs counter to the president's views on climate science.

The Trump administration wants to limit abortion access at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), raising fears among advocates for reproductive rights that the president will use his second term to enact "extreme" new restrictions.

Last month, the VA moved to roll back benefits for department healthcare beneficiaries that include access to abortions and abortion counseling.

U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown is upending lives, testing the U.S. court system and providing a lucrative income for the private prison industry.

Major prison companies have talked up the financial opportunities already flowing in from the construction of new or expanded detention facilities to house immigrants detained or awaiting deportation.

As U.S. President Donald Trump ramps up his immigration crackdown and mass deportation plans, federal spending on immigration enforcement is also rising.

Following Trump's "big, beautiful bill" bill passed in July, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has received a massive boost in funding to the point where it rivals – and even is projected to top, in some cases - the total military budgets of major countries around the world.

As the U.S. marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, more than 180 current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staffers warn cuts and leadership failures at the agency could lead to another calamitous disaster response.

In August 2005, Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people and caused an inflation-adjusted $205 billion in damages to become the most destructive hurricane in U.S. history.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released a major report, crafted by a handful of scientific experts, that challenges widely accepted conclusions on the climate crisis, including the role of humans in causing it.

The roughly 150-page Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate has generated vociferous condemnation from the scientific community and a lawsuit that accuses the Trump administration of "a plan hatched and carried out in secret" to undermine scientific consensus.