US officials have suspended visa interviews for all international students looking to study in the United States. They say they’re revamping policies to include the vetting of applicants’ social media accounts. The US has long been the top destination for students from Latin America. Many Latin American leaders have been educated in the country. But as Michael Fox reports from Quito, Ecuador, that trajectory could suddenly shift.
More than 30,000 people in Canada have been evacuated due to wildfires, and millions of acres have burned — and it’s only the start of the fire season. John Vaillant, author of “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World,” said climate change is making conditions ideal for stronger, more frequent fires.
Since the end of World War II, the Fulbright Program has been one of America’s most prestigious tools of diplomacy — sending scholars abroad, welcoming researchers in and building soft power through education. But today, this flagship exchange program is under existential threat — from the State Department that runs it. As the World’s Joshua Coe learned, it could take decades to see the repercussions.
A constant fixture of National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek’s journey through rural Japan was the whirligig, or as he called them, “seismic scarecrows.” Gardeners he spoke to use these contraptions to scare away crop pests like mice and foxes. Host Carolyn Beeler spoke with Salopek about the whirligigs, rural Japanese architectural aesthetics and how he got aboard a cargo ship to cross to North America.
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