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Anjan Roy was studying with friends at Missouri State University when he got an email that turned his world upside down. His legal status as an international student had been terminated, and he was suddenly at risk for deportation.“I was in literal shock, like, what the hell is this?” said Roy, a graduate student in computer science from Bangladesh.At first, he avoided going out in public, skipping classes and mostly keeping his phone turned off. A court ruling in his favor led to his status being restored this week, and he has returned to his apartment, but he is still asking his roommates to screen visitors.More than a thousand international students have faced similar disruptions in recent weeks, with their academic careersand their lives in the U.S.thrown into doubt in a widespread crackdown by the Trump administration. Some have found a measure of success in court, with federal judges around the country issuing orders to restore students’ legal status at least temporarily.In addition to the case filed in Atlanta, where Roy is among 133 plaintiffs, judges have issued temporary restraining orders in states including New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Judges have denied similar requests in some other cases, saying it was not clear the loss of status would cause irreparable harm. International students challenge grounds for their status revocation Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting counter to national interests, including some who protested Israel’s war in Gaza and those who face criminal charges. But many affected students said they have been involved only in minor infractions, or it’s unclear altogether why they were targeted.The attorney for Roy and his fellow plaintiffs, Charles Kuck, argued the government did not have legal grounds to terminate the students’ status.He speculated in court last week the government is trying to encourage these students to self-deport, saying “the pressure on these students is overwhelming.” He said some asked him if it was safe to leave their homes to get food, and others worried they wouldn’t receive a degree after years of work or feared their chances of a career in the U.S. were shot.“I think the hope is they’ll just leave,” Kuck said. “The reality is these kids are invested.”An attorney for the government, R. David Powell, argued the students did not suffer significant harm because they could transfer their academic credits or find jobs in another country.At least 1,100 students at 174 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records. The AP is working to confirm reports of hundreds more students who are caught up in the crackdown.In a lawsuit filed Monday by four people on student visas at the University of Iowa, attorneys detail the “mental and financial suffering” they’ve experienced. One graduate student, from India, “cannot sleep and is having difficulty breathing and eating,” the lawsuit reads. He has stopped going to school, doing research or working as a teaching assistant. Another student, a Chinese undergraduate who expected to graduate this December, said his revoked status has caused his depression to worsen to the point that his doctor increased his medication dosage. The student, the lawsuit says, has not left his apartment out of fear of detention. Tiny infractions made students targets for the crackdown Roy, 23, began his academic career at Missouri State in August 2024 as an undergraduate computer science student. He was active in the chess club and a fraternity and has a broad circle of friends. After graduating in December, he began work on a master’s degree in January and expects to finish in May 2026.When Roy received the university’s April 10 email on his status termination, one of his friends offered to skip class to go with him to the school’s international services office, even though they had a quiz in 45 minutes. The staff there said a database check showed his student status had been terminated, but they didn’t know why.Roy said his only brush with the law came in 2021, when he was questioned by campus security after someone called in a dispute at a university housing building. But he said an officer determined there was no evidence of any crime and no charges were filed.Roy also got an email from the U.S. embassy in Bangladesh telling him his visa had been revoked and that he could be detained at any time. It warned that if he was deported, he could be sent to a country other than his own. Roy thought about leaving the U.S. but decided to stay after talking to a lawyer.Anxious about being in his own apartment, Roy went to stay with his second cousin and her husband nearby.“They were scared someone was going to pick me up from the street and take me somewhere that they wouldn’t even know,” Roy said.He mostly stayed inside, turned off his phone unless he needed to use it, and avoided internet browsers that track user data through cookies. His professors were understanding when he told them he wouldn’t be able to come to classes for a while, he said. New doubts about students’ future in the U.S. After the judge’s order Friday, he moved back to his apartment. He learned Tuesday his status had been restored, and he plans to return to class. But he’s still nervous. He asked his two roommates, both international students, to let him know before they open the door if someone they don’t know knocks.The judge’s restoration of his legal status is temporary. Another hearing scheduled for Thursday will determine whether he keeps that status while the litigation continues.Roy chose the U.S. over other options in Canada and Australia because of the research opportunities and potential for professional connections, and he ultimately wanted to teach at an American university. But now those plans are up in the air.His parents, back in Dhaka, have been watching the news and are “freaked out,” he said. His father mentioned to him that they have family in Melbourne, Australia, including a cousin who’s an assistant professor at a university there. _AP reporters Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Kate Brumback, Associated Press
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Harmful bleaching of the world’s coral has grown to include 84% of the ocean’s reefs in the most intense event of its kind in recorded history, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced Wednesday.It’s the fourth global bleaching event since 1998, and has now surpassed bleaching from 2014-17 that hit some two-thirds of reefs, said the ICRI, a mix of more than 100 governments, non-governmental organizations and others. And it’s not clear when the current crisis, which began in 2023 and is blamed on warming oceans, will end.“We may never see the heat stress that causes bleaching dropping below the threshold that triggers a global event,” said Mark Eakin, executive secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired coral monitoring chief for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.“We’re looking at something that’s completely changing the face of our planet and the ability of our oceans to sustain lives and livelihoods,” Eakin said.Last year was Earth’s hottest year on record, and much of that is going into oceans. The average annual sea surface temperature of oceans away from the poles was a record 20.87 degrees Celsius (69.57 degrees Fahrenheit).That’s deadly to corals, which are key to seafood production, tourism and protecting coastlines from erosion and storms. Coral reefs are sometimes dubbed “rainforests of the sea” because they support high levels of biodiversityapproximately 25% of all marine species can be found in, on and around coral reefs.Coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them and are a food source for the corals. Prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds, and the coral eject them. A stark white skeleton is left behind, and the weakened coral is at heightened risk of dying.The bleaching event has been so severe that NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program has had to add levels to its bleaching alert scale to account for the growing risk of coral death.Efforts are underway to conserve and restore coral. One Dutch lab has worked with coral fragments, including some taken from off the coast of the Seychelles, to propagate them in a zoo so that they might be used someday to repopulate wild coral reefs if needed. Other projects, including one off Florida, have worked to rescue corals endangered by high heat and nurse them back to health before returning them to the ocean.But scientists say it’s essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet, such as carbon dioxide and methane.“The best way to protect coral reefs is to address the root cause of climate change. And that means reducing the human emissions that are mostly from burning of fossil fuels . . . everything else is looking more like a Band-Aid rather than a solution,” Eakin said.“I think people really need to recognize what they’re doing . . . inaction is the kiss of death for coral reefs,” said Melanie McField, co-chair of the Caribbean Steering Committee for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, a network of scientists that monitors reefs throughout the world.The group’s update comes as President Donald Trump has moved aggressively in his second term to boost fossil fuels and roll back clean energy programs, which he says is necessary for economic growth.“We’ve got a government right now that is working very hard to destroy all of these ecosystems . . . removing these protections is going to have devastating consequences,” Eakin said. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Isabella O’Malley, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
European Union watchdogs fined Apple and Meta hundreds of millions of euros Wednesday as they stepped up enforcement of the 27-nation bloc’s digital competition rules.The European Commission imposed a 500 million euro ($571 million) fine on Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store.The commission, which is the EU’s executive arm, also fined Meta Platforms 200 million euros because it forced Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.The punishments were smaller than the blockbuster multibillion-euro fines that the commission has previously slapped on Big Tech companies in antitrust cases.Apple and Meta have to comply with the decisions within 60 days or risk unspecified “periodic penalty payments,” the commission said.The decisions were expected to come in March, but officials apparently held off amid an escalating trans-Atlantic trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly complained about regulations from Brussels affecting American companies.The penalties were issued under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, also known as the DMA. It’s a sweeping rulebook that amounts to a set of do’s and don’ts designed to give consumers and businesses more choice and prevent Big Tech “gatekeepers” from cornering digital markets.The DMA seeks to ensure “that citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers,” Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said in a statement.“The decisions adopted today find that both Apple and Meta have taken away this free choice from their users and are required to change their behavior,” Virkkunen said.Both companies indicated they would appeal.Apple accused the commission of “unfairly targeting” the iPhone maker, and said it “continues to move the goal posts” despite the company’s efforts to comply with the rules.Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said in a statement that the “Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.”In the App Store case, the Commission had accused the iPhone maker of imposing unfair rules preventing app developers from freely steering consumers to other channels.Among the DMA’s provisions are requirements to let developers inform customers of cheaper purchasing options and direct them to those offers.The commission said it ordered Apple to remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevent developers from steering users to other channels, and to end “non-compliant” conduct.Apple said it has “spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for.”“Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way,” the company said.The EU’s Meta investigation centered on the company’s strategy to comply with strict European data privacy rules by giving users the option of paying for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram.Users could pay at least 10 euros ($11) a month to avoid being targeted by ads based on their personal data. The U.S. tech giant rolled out the option after the European Union’s top court ruled Meta must first get consent before showing ads to users, in a decision that threatened its business model of tailoring ads based on individual users’ online interests and digital activity.Regulators took issue with Meta’s model, saying it doesn’t allow users to exercise their right to “freely consent” to allowing their personal data from its various services, which also including Facebook Marketplace, WhatsApp, and Messenger, to be combined for personalized ads.Meta rolled out a third option in November giving Facebook and Instagram users in Europe the option to see fewer personalized ads if they don’t want to pay for an ad-free subscription. The commission said it’s “currently assessing” this option and continues to hold talks with Meta, and has asked the company to provide evidence of the new option’s impact.“This isn’t just about a fine; the Commission forcing us to change our business model effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service,” Kaplan said. “And by unfairly restricting personalized advertising the European Commission is also hurting European businesses and economies.” Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer
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