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Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Trump visa changes squeeze rural schools relying on international teachers

Allias Grif March 11, 2026

Like many school systems facingteacher shortages, South Carolina's Allendale County has looked overseas for help. A quarter of the teachers in the rural, high-poverty district come from other countries.

The superintendent praises theinternational educators— mostly from Jamaica and the Philippines — for their skill and dedication, but she is preparing to lose some of them as the Trump administration reshapes visa programs.

Facing higher visa sponsorship costs and uncertain immigration policies, Superintendent Vallerie Cave said it feels too risky to extend some international teachers whose contracts are up or bring on others.

"Some of my very best teachers are having to return to their countries," Cave said.

For rural schools especially, President Donald Trump'simmigration crackdownis pinching a pipeline used widely to fill staffing shortages that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rural districts can struggle to attract American teachers to remote areas that lack plentiful housing, shopping and services such as health care, especially for lower salaries than some bigger districts offer.

Cave is hoping to hire local teachers to fill the gaps left by several teachers' impending departures. If she can't, she may expand the district's use of online teachers. Elsewhere, districts are consideringhiring uncertified instructors, combining classes or dropping course offerings.

In September, the White House announced a$100,000 feeon H-1B visas, which allow highly skilled foreign workers to be employed in the U.S. The Trump administration argued American employees were being replaced, particularly in highly paid roles at tech companies. Critics have argued the fee will worsen labor shortages outside of tech.

More than 2,300 people with H-1B visas work as educators across 500 school districts, according to an analysis by the National Education Association teachers union. In a December lawsuit challenging the fee, a coalition of 20 states argued that the fees would effectively prevent school districts from hiring international teachers.

The Trump administration has provided a form to request exemptions on the fee, and educators and advocacy groups have argued it's in the public's interest for teachers to be exempted. Teachers also can come to the U.S. on the more common J-1 visa, which allows short-term stays for cultural exchange programs and is not subject to the new fee.

In rural Oregon, the Umatilla School District recruited two teachers from Spain for math and science instruction. The teachers were "phenomenal," Superintendent Heidi Sipe said, but they returned home in the summer.

"Unfortunately, due to some things at home and then the stress of the unknown, they did choose to go back," Sipe said.

The district did not look for international candidates to replace them because of the cost and uncertainty, but it was able to advertise early and found local candidates for the openings, Sipe said. Other school leaders are not optimistic they will have the same success.

In Allendale County, the international teachers — on a mix of H-1B and J-1 visas — have taught subjects including math, science and language arts, plus special education. Even before the hike in fees, it would cost between $15,000 to $20,000 to sponsor a single teacher every year, Cave said.

School leaders agree hiring in-person, certified staff is the best option — teachers who can sit with students to explain a concept and build closer relationships throughout the school day. When that option fails, they weigh tradeoffs.

Cave said she will look to introduce more virtual teachers through Fullmind, a company the district already is using to provide three state-certified instructors. Students meet in a classroom, and their teacher joins them via video chat. Fullmind announced Thursday it had acquired Elevate K-12 and now provides the remote instruction for more than 225 school systems.

South Carolina lets districts hire non-certified teachers to meet staffing needs, but Cave said she would bring in more online teachers before pursuing that option. Her challenges with teacher shortages, she said, have not let up since the pandemic, when many school districts used federal relief money to post new positions, then had difficulty finding enough teachers.

"I can't really do competitive pay," she said. "For rural America, impoverished America, it is still a problem recruiting teachers."

At Halifax County Schools in rural North Carolina, 103 of the 159 teachers are from other countries. For the longer term, the district is pursuing ways to recruit future educators as early as their junior and senior years in high school.

More immediately, the district is hoping to hire international teachers coming from other districts who want to have their J-1 visas changed to H-1B visas, which could allow the school system to avoid the $100,000 fee, said Carolyn Mitchell, the district's executive director of human resources.

"You have to try to figure out every alternative way when you know that you may need people," Mitchell said.

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Utah’s anti-gambling tradition meets Kalshi and Polymarket in a new legal fight

Allias Grif March 11, 2026

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — For more than a century, Utah has kept gambling almost entirely out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries and no racetracks that allow bets, a prohibition rooted in the conservative ideals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks at an event at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

FILE - The Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is seen, Oct. 5, 2019, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Governors Summit

But now, the state is fighting a new, more challenging battle to keep gambling outside its borders. It's on the verge of enacting a law intended to undercutprediction marketslike Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on anything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles to whether the United States will go to war.

While regulators and other states are still debating whether those markets constitute finance or gambling, Utah has already made up its mind.

"We are putting a casino in the pocket of every single American, and they are targeting especially young people," said Gov. Spencer Cox. "It is really awful what they are doing, and we are going to make sure this doesn't happen in our state."

Cox said he will sign the legislation, putting conservative Utahat odds with the federal government. Kalshi has already sued the state, and the company is backed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets.

The conflict puts Utah, a place that's not known for picking fights, on the frontlines of a cultural, political and economic battle sweeping the country. On one side is a state heavily influenced by what is widely known as theMormonchurch, where both politicians and faith leaders have treated the issue as a moral crusade. On the other is a growing industry — Kalshi and Polymarket are estimated to be worth $20 billion each after their last fundraising rounds — with connections in Washington that may offer some regulatory protection.

President Donald Trump's eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in the latter. Trump's social media platform Truth Social is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.

Whoever wins this round could shape how other states handle the issue in the future.

"What's at stake here is whether states will be able to regulate gambling or if gambling is going to be subsumed into finance and ultimately regulated by Congress," said Todd Phillips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written extensively on the issue of regulating prediction markets.

Utah takes aim at prop betting

Polymarket and Kalshi allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. Contracts are typically priced between one cent and 99 cents, which roughly translates to the percentage of customers who believe that event will happen.

The companies argue they offer products that allow customers to manage risk, like how farmers can buy corn futures to lock in the price of their crops ahead of time. And derivative markets like the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange have long offered what are known as binary options to investors, which bet on whether an event will or will not happen.

But unlike those derivative markets, the bulk of Kalshi's trading volume and roughly half of Polymarket's arenow tied to sports. Kalshi said it saw more than $1 billion in volume traded on the Super Bowl alone.

Utah is seeking to limit prediction markets from doing business in the state by taking aim at proposition betting in sports, which can be a significant source of their revenue.

The bill that Cox plans to sign would expand the state's gambling ban to include wagers on certain events happening in a game rather than the game's outcome. An example of these "prop bets" would be how well a particular player performs, or a team hitting a specific threshold like rebounds or other metrics.

The legislation also aims to stop sportsbooks companies like FanDuel and DraftKings that have set up their own prediction markets, which analysts say could allow the companies to get around state gambling prohibitions.

Because of the vocal opposition of Utah officials, Kalshi preemptively sued the state in late February, asking a judge to stop Utah from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. A federal judge has yet to rule on Kalshi's request. Other judges in Nevada and Massachusetts have issued early rulings in favor of states looking to ban Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports betting in their states, while judges in New Jersey in Tennessee have ruled in favor of Kalshi.

Kalshi argues its product is different from sportsbooks companies or casinos because customers are betting against each other instead of against the "house," spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Trump has agreed with Kalshi and has asserted that it has exclusive regulatory oversight of prediction markets. The agency argues states cannot ban the products from operating in their jurisdiction just because they are morally opposed to them.

"To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court," chairman Michael Selig said recently in a video posted to social media.

A moral crusade with religious roots

It's the first major issue in which Cox has clashed with Trump in the year and a half since the Republican governorworked his way into Trump's good gracesafter not voting for him in 2016 and 2020.

Patrick Mason, the chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, said he is not surprised to see Cox and other Utah Republicans take a stand against prediction markets, even if it means going against their own party's leadership in Washington. In the state, where about half of the 3.5 million residents are Latter-day Saints, even a simple game of church bingo is a rare sight.

"Maybe they play for M&Ms, but never money," he said.

All the state's major politicians, including the governor, lieutenant governor and its entire congressional delegation are members of the church headquartered in Salt Lake City. When they view an issue as moral rather than political, the faith's teachings often take precedence over appeasing the party, Mason explained.

Church doctrine prohibits gambling in any form, saying it is motivated by "a desire to get something for nothing" and is destructive to individuals and families.

"The idea that it goes against a sense of work ethic, a kind of fair exchange, has always been at the heart of the way a lot of people think about themselves in terms of Utah identity, and certainly Latter-day Saint identity and ethics," Mason said.

Because of Utah's religious roots, the state has prohibited gambling since it was admitted to the Union in 1895. Along with Hawaii, it has the strictest gambling prohibitions in the country. Utah doesn't even allow broad multi-state lotteries like Powerball or Mega Millions.

Utah leads on both state and federal fronts

Phillips, the professor focused on industry regulation, said if Congress does not step in to clarify whether these new prediction markets are legal, the issue will be left to the courts.

"The line between gambling and finance is very, very fine," Phillips said. "There's a reason why Congress has, over and over again, stepped in to define and regulate financial markets when the products skew too close to gambling."

There is already some movement on Capitol Hill, led in part by another Utah Republican.

Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah and Democrat Rep. Salud Carbajal of California introduced bipartisan legislation this week to more aggressively regulate prediction markets. The bill would ban prediction markets from allowing bets on war, assassinations, terrorist attacks or election outcomes, as well as allow states to ban sports-related betting.

"We, as a society, should not be taking bets on whether we are going to invade Cuba," Moore said.

Democratic senators have also said they will introduce legislation to ban wagers on violence.

"It's insane this is legal," Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on social media.

In court filings, Kalshi has tried to argue that its sports prediction market has economic utility and usefulness. It uses an example of an insurance company that underwrites the careers of college athletes using prediction markets to hedge the risk. Kalshi also argues that hotels, travel agencies and stadium management companies may be able to use prediction markets to hedge their risk against underperforming sports.

Moore said he is not swayed by Kalshi and Polymarket's economic arguments.

"Utah's economic outlook has been strong for many years," he said. "I see no need why we need to embrace these as an economic tool."

One-third of Americans cut back on other expenses to cover healthcare in 2025, survey shows

Allias Grif March 11, 2026

March 12 (Reuters) - Roughly one-third of Americans cut back on food, utilities or other daily expenses to pay for healthcare last year, research ‌from the West Health-Gallup Center showed on Thursday, as steeper prices ‌and rising living costs hit households.

A nationally and state-representative survey of nearly 20,000 U.S. adults in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia, conducted from June to August 2025, found that 33% of respondents had made at least one trade-off in daily expenses to pay for healthcare.

This was far more common among Americans who do not have ‌health insurance, with 62% ⁠of those surveyed saying they have made at least one sacrifice to pay for healthcare, including 32% who had to borrow ⁠money and 24% who had prolonged their current medication.

Among those with insurance, close to three in 10 have made at least one sacrifice, the survey found.

Most Americans with private health insurance are paying higher premiums and steeper out-of-pocket costs in 2026, including ‌millions of people in the government-subsidized Affordable Care Act plans in which extra COVID pandemic-era subsidies have expired.

"We're actually finding that people are reporting higher incidences of metabolic disease or depression and anxiety. We're not getting healthier as a society, we're actually getting sicker, and the healthcare cost is going up on top ‌of it," said Timothy Lash, president of West Health Policy Center, a nonprofit organization focused on healthcare and aging.

In another survey of 5,660 U.S. adults, collected primarily through Gallup's panel between ‌October and December last year, Americans reported having delayed a life event or change within the past four years due to healthcare costs, such as buying a new home or taking a vacation.

Nearly 9% of the respondents of this ‌survey, also released on Thursday, postponed their retirement due to healthcare costs, whereas twice as many reported delaying a job change.

(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)

“General Hospital” star Kate Mansi could have died without surgery performed by her stepdad: 'Worst pain in my life'

Allias Grif March 11, 2026

General Hospitalstar Kate Mansi is opening up about a harrowing health scare — and how her stepfather came to the rescue.

Kate Mansi in Los Angeles in 2023Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty

While starring onDays of Our Livesin 2015, Mansi said she suddenly began to experience intense pain, cramping, and heavy bleeding, compelling her to seek emergency care. But "doctors just kept dismissing it," shetold PEOPLEon Wednesday.

Mansi's doctors suggested it was a complication from IUD implantation, or that it was "just a bad period." But pain and cramping eventually evolved into vomiting, skin discoloration, and a stomach "so distended that I couldn't even zip up my pants."

Still, Mansi felt obligated to meet the strict production demands of a daily soap

Kate Mansi on 'General Hospital'Credit: Disney/Christine Bartolucci

"I've never gone through childbirth, but it felt like I was having extreme contractions," Mansi recalled. "They would say action, I would do my scene, and then the second they said cut, I was literally doubled over in pain."

She returned to the emergency room that day, joined by her mom and stepdad, an ob-gyn. Doctors discovered an 11-cm mass in Mansi's abdomen — complications from a previously undetected ovarian cyst — sending the actress into a panic. Her stepdad grew "so frustrated" that, because he was technically free to perform an operation himself as a non-blood relation, "he scrubbed in himself and was like, 'I'm not waiting for an oncologist. I'm gonna do the surgery, or she's not gonna make it.'"

Mansi explained, "He did a surgery that ended up saving my life."

Mansi made it through emergency surgery and numerous blood transfusions that followed. When she had recovered, "My stepdad told me, 'You have endometriosis and this is what that means.' And that was the first time I had ever even heard that word."

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The Mayo Clinicdefines endometriosis as a painful condition in which tissue that would normally only grow inside the uterus instead develops outside, making it hard for the body to expel. Endometriosis can cause pose major problems to the uterus and ovaries, as well as complicate menstruation and childbirth.

Now fully recovered from the grueling ordeal, Mansi is dedicated to sharing her experience to those living with endometriosis, which theWorld Health Organizationestimates effects 10 percent of women worldwide.

Mansi has directed an upcoming episode ofGeneral Hospital, which she has starred on since 2023, in which her character Kristina's sister Molly (Kristen Vaganos) gets candid about her own struggle with the condition. The actress described her directing approach as choosing not to just focus on "Molly's vulnerability, but her strength and how so many people with endometriosis often hide behind the strength and resiliency so that we don't look weak."

Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly

Jury orders Ye to pay man who sued rapper for labor violations

Allias Grif March 11, 2026

More than two years afterYewassued by a manoverseeing construction at his Malibu home, a Los Angeles jury mostly sided against thecontroversial rapper, formerly known asKanye West.

On Wednesday, March 11, the jury handed down a verdict finding Ye liable for damages related to injuries alleged by Tony Saxon – a project manager who also performed full-time security duties during construction on the waterfront property in 2021 and claimed various labor violations during the job – perVarietyandRolling Stone.

However, the jurors reportedly did not find that Saxon had been wrongfully terminated and decided to not award punitive damages as they did not agree that Ye acted with "malice, oppression, or fraud."

The Yeezy founder was ordered to pay Saxon $140,000, as well as compensation for Saxon's legal fees – a far cry from the $1.7 million in compensatory damages Saxon's team was seeking.

Tony Saxon arrives at a Los Angeles courthouse on March 5, 2026, for his case against Ye, formerly Kanye, West, whom he accuses of labor violations. Ye and Bianca Censori were set to testify in the civil trial.

Saxon's attorney, West Coast Trial Lawyers Employment Chair Ronald Zambrano, in a statement called the result a "mixed verdict" that was "a vindication for our client."

"Ye's lawyers called [Saxon] a liar, a fraud, and a malingerer in court. His medical records, bank records, and personal family history were dissected, mocked, and vilified. Yeezy representative Milo Yiannopoulos maligned him and our firm in the press. Ye's team demanded that Tony pay them to resolve the case and issue a public apology. Most people would have folded," he said.

Born Kanye Omari West, Ye transformed himself from a college dropout in Chicago to an undisputable icon of music and fashion. But a string of controversies has the rapper facing a fallout. In October 2022, several companies, including Adidas and Balenciaga fashion house, cut ties with the star after he made antisemitic remarks.

Look back on Ye's life and career, from his marriage and divorce from Kim Kardashian to his polarizing political statements. Here, Ye and Bianca Censori attend the 67th Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles.