14 Million Visitors to U.S. Face Social-Media Screening

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14 Million Visitors to U.S. Face Social-Media Screening Photo New guidelines proposed by the Trump administration would require nearly all applicants for a visa to enter the United States to submit their social-media user names for the past five years. Credit Vincent Tullo for The New York Times Nearly all applicants for a visa to enter the United States — an estimated 14.7 million people a year — will be asked to submit their social-media user names for the past five years, under proposed rules that the State Department issued on Friday.
Last September, the Trump administration announced that applicants for immigrant visas would be asked for social-media data, a proposal that would affect about 710,000 people each year. The new proposal would vastly expand that requirement to cover some 14 million people each year who apply for nonimmigrant visas.
Although officials did not specify which social-media platforms would be affected, the proposal is likely to cover the largest ones, like F..

As Russia Empties Embassies, Who Will Replace That Lost Passport?

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As Russia Empties Embassies, Who Will Replace That Lost Passport? Photo The United States Embassy in Moscow is already struggling to handle some basic operations after a previous major staff reduction. Credit Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images MOSCOW — The scope of Russia’s retaliatory expulsions of Western diplomats grew clearer Friday as the Kremlin summoned 23 ambassadors to issue eviction orders, while diplomatic veterans questioned how the United States Embassy, with a greatly reduced staff, could perform basic tasks.
The ambassadors, mostly European, called to the Kremlin Friday were told that their diplomatic staffs would be cut by the same number of people as had been lost by Russian embassies in their own capitals during a recently coordinated ouster of more than 150 Russian diplomats.
On Thursday, Russia said it would expel 60 American diplomats.
The expulsions and counter-expulsions, following the crisis over the poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei V..

‘Vicious’ Killer of 11 Women Gets Death Penalty in China

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‘Vicious’ Killer of 11 Women Gets Death Penalty in China Photo The verdict against Gao Chengyong, convicted of 11 murders that included rape and defiling corpses, was applauded in China. Credit Reuters BEIJING — Thirty years after Gao Chengyong embarked on a succession of 11 rape-murders of women in northwest China, a court sentenced him to death on Friday, following an investigation that involved sifting through 230,000 fingerprints.
The sentence by a court in Baiyin, a small city in Gansu Province, was not unexpected in China, which executes more prisoners than any other. But the verdict against Mr. Gao, 53, a farmer, itinerant worker and shopkeeper, was widely reported, and applauded, in China, where the killings drew intense attention.
“The motives for the defendant Gao Chengyong’s crimes were utterly despicable, the means were utterly vicious, the nature of the crimes utterly vile,” the court’s verdict stated, according to the China News Service, an official agency.
The court foun..