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Brain Drain: America feels prolonged economic impact from the slump in foreign student admissions

By David L. Di Maria, Associate Vice Provost for International Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Driven largely by the global pandemic, the number of international students enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities fell by 15%, or 161,401 students, from 2019 to 2020. However, early data for 2021 indicate the number might bounce back soon. This is according to new data from the Institute of International Education and the U.S. State Department. As a university administrator who specializes in international higher education, I see six important takeaways to consider. 1. A record decrease While a drop was expected due...

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When Conservative Christians come to the sobering reality that they are antithetical to Jesus

The steady stream of vitriol I receive from professed Christians who identify as MAGA or QAnon or Republican is completely understandable. As they fire-off threatening texts, furiously tap out expletive-laden emails, and break into violent, performative histrionics on social media, I genuinely feel for them. They are often getting some really bad second-hand news from me that blows up the narrative they have spent a long time telling themselves and depend on to validate and to justify them. They are coming face to face with the sobering reality that they are antithetical to Jesus. Worse than that, they are...

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Freedom of religion is part of American values but QAnon conspiracies have no place in a civilized society

A significant number of QAnon followers believe the end-point of their religion will be reached when Donald Trump takes back control of America, unleashes police to mass-arrest elected and other high-profile Democrats, and QAnon followers then engage in an orgy of violence and murder against Democratic Party-aligned neighbors, friends, and family. Already, one believer has murdered two of his children, saying they had “serpent DNA” and had to be killed to save humanity. There’s evidence that a majority of the people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6th, leading to more than a half-dozen deaths and nearly overthrowing...

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Jonathan Brostoff: We cannot permit Republican efforts that undermine Wisconsin’s elections

A mismanaged, hyper-partisan “election review.” Multiple, ridiculous calls for resignations. A sitting U.S. Senator suggesting legislative Republicans take over election administration from nonpartisan officials. Threats of legal action and jail time for election officials and mayors. Once upon a time, states were viewed as the “laboratories of democracy.” But today, in the long wake of the 2020 presidential election, Republicans are trying to turn Wisconsin into a laboratory of autocracy. First things first: it is crucial that we acknowledge, often and loudly, that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. He won the Electoral College vote...

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Perpetuating Trump’s Big Lie: How Republicans are setting the stage for anther insurrection in 2024

We are demonizing the wrong people. This is not a call to “understand” or “have compassion” for Trump voters. Instead, it is a call for a wholesale political and social indictment of Trump’s Big Lie, along with every elected Republican politician or media member who knows Trump lost but keeps perpetuating that Lie. If we fail, history may repeat itself and — this time — the result will be far worse than Bush’s lying us into two wars and privatizing Medicare. That, in part, is because numerous Republican-controlled states are passing laws and gaming out scenarios that could enable...

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Exploiting an internal rot: When foreign governments pretend to be Americans on social media

“Divide & conquer: A sample of 32,315 pro-Rittenhouse hashtag tweets, Nov 19-20, showed 29,609 with disabled geolocation. Of those, 17,701 were listed as “foreign”, but a deep scrub revealed most of those were in Russia, China, and the EU.” – Frank Figliuzzi The fact-checking site Snopes looked into similar claims and found massive evidence of foreign-based social media accounts pretending to be Americans while cheerleading Rittenhouse and questioning the viability of America. This is how democracies can be destroyed from the outside, by planting seeds of hate and division that appear to come from inside and alter the sentiments...

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