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..

Built to Flood: Brutal Choice in Houston: Sell Home at a Loss or Face New Floods

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| Built to Flood
Brutal Choice in Houston: Sell Home at a Loss or Face New Floods

KATY, Tex. — When Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, floodwaters swept through Eileen and Jeff Swanson’s two-story brick home, blanketing the first floor in muck and nearly destroying a domestic existence 12 years in the making. Their china cabinet, in the family for three generations, was reduced to a sodden mess. A couch, once a soft red, had blushed into a watery burgundy; the carpet squished like grass at the bottom of a marsh. A dirty foot-high water line ran wall to wall, marking the local crest of an event that the National Weather Service called “the most significant tropical cyclone rainfall event in United States history.”
After the floodwaters receded, the Swansons returned to a house ravaged, endless questions, few answers — and a looming decision.
They are not alone. Hundreds of homeowners in Canyon Gate at Cinco Ranch, a quiet subdivision in a west Houston suburb, a..