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International students warned not to overstay visas

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avrotusa
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Nick EardleyPolitical correspondent and

Paul SeddonPolitical reporter

Getty Images Four students wearing black graduation gowns and caps with yellow and green sashes stand closely together with their backs to the camera. One student has an arm around another’s shoulder. They are outdoors in front of a historic building with ornate architecture.Getty Images

Tens of thousands of foreign students are being contacted directly by the government and told they will be removed from the UK if they overstay their visas.

The Home Office launched the new government campaign in response to what it has called an “alarming” spike in the number of international students arriving legally on student visas then claiming asylum when they expire.

As part of the campaign, the Home Office has for the first time proactively contacted international students directly by text and email.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC some international students are claiming asylum “even when things haven’t changed in their home country”.

Around 13% of asylum applications in the year to June, around 14,800, came from people in the UK a study visa, according to Home Office data.

Pakistan was the most common country of origin, responsible for 5,700 of these applications, followed by students from India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.

Although the number of student visa holders applying for asylum has dropped from the year before, it is nearly six times as many as in 2020, according to the department.

The Home Office did not break down how many applications were made from students who overstayed their visa.

Clamping down on study as a means to claim asylum has increasingly been a focus for the Home Office in recent months.

In May, the department announced it planned to tighten rules that aim to stop migrants using university study as a way to enter the UK.

Under the plans, beginning this month, the visa refusal and course completion rates that universities have to meet in order not to risk losing their ability to sponsor future visas are to be made stricter.

It comes as the government tries to regain the initiative on migration, following a summer dominated by headlines on small boat arrivals and the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.

As MPs returned to Parliament on Monday, Cooper announced new applications for a scheme allowing refugees to bring their family members to the UK would be temporarily suspended.

The government is also promising that the first migrant returns under the UK’s new “one in, one out” deal with France will begin later this month.

The new message campaign will see around 130,000 students and their families receive a message telling them if they have “no legal right to remain” in the country they “must leave”.

Ten thousand international students whose visas are due to expire have already been contacted directly by text and email – warning them they could be deported.

Tens of thousands more will receive the message in the coming months, the BBC understands, to coincide with autumn when applications often increase.

The full message will read: “If you submit an asylum claim that lacks merit, it will be swiftly and robustly refused.

“Any request for asylum support will be assessed against destitution criteria. If you do not meet the criteria, you will not receive support.

“If you have no legal right to remain in the UK, you must leave.

“If you don’t, we will remove you.”

Cooper told BBC Breakfast that students are entering the asylum system and sometimes staying there for years, which “causes problems with asylum accommodation and hotels”.

“We obviously will do our bit to support genuine refugees,” she added, “but if nothing has changed in their country, people should not be claiming asylum at the end of a student course.”

While the political focus this summer has been on people arriving on small boats, a similar number arrive legally with visas, then apply for asylum often when those visas run out.

Many of these claims are legitimate, but ministers are worried that too many international students are seeking asylum simply to stay in the country because their leave to remain has run out.

According to the Home Office, 43,600 out of 111,084 asylum applications in the year to June came from people arriving on a small boat.

But a similar number, 41,100, had travelled to the UK legally through routes such as a work, study, or visitor visa, including the 14,800 on student visas.

Earlier this year, the Home Office announced a cut in the amount of time overseas graduates can stay in the UK after their studies – from two years to 18 months.

Universities UK, an umbrella group for British universities, said it recognised the government had “raised concerns about the number of asylum claims, and we have discussed this matter with officials”.

“To make sure universities can continue to play their part, we need improved, real-time data sharing between Home Office and the sector so that universities can respond proactively to any issues as soon as they are identified,” it added.

The Refugee Council said the situation in some students’ home countries could change “dramatically” after their arrival in the UK.

Jon Featonby, the charity’s senior policy analyst, said other people seeking asylum only felt safe enough to ask for protection once they reach the UK “because they fear reprisal or surveillance in their home country”.

“It’s wrong to suggest that people who arrive on a visa and then apply for asylum are abusing the system and do not have a genuine need for protection,” he added.

Why return-to-office cannot be one-size-fits-all 

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New York and Miami recently flipped the script on the future of in-office work, according to a study by Placer.ai. But it’s not the end of the story — rather, it is the opening scene in a far more complicated drama. Cities dominated by the financial industry are actually returning to the office. Tech-driven cities are recalibrating at a new normal that involves more remote work. Finally, a large middle swath of metros is settling into hybrid routines that will likely never fully go back to the way things were in 2019.

The results showcase how industry mix shapes behavior on the ground. Finance sets the tone in both cities and has pushed hard for in-office norms. Placer.ai reports that New York is unique among major metros in that it already has more office visits by workers than it did in 2019 — up by 1.3 percent from before the pandemic. Miami is a close second, being down from 2019 by only about 0.1 percent.

The reason? Firmer policies among large financial institutions that prize in-person apprenticeship, compliance and deal cadence. That pressure certainly helped fill elevators this summer, yet it also created friction for talent that still values flexibility.

Companies that dial returns up too far invite turnover risk that shows up quickly in high-skilled labor markets. The evidence for that is no longer anecdotal. University of Pittsburgh researchers analyzing S&P 500 firms found that after return-to-office mandates, affected companies experienced abnormally high employee turnover and slower hiring, with especially pronounced exits among senior and high-performing employees. The school’s summary states that mandates did not improve firm performance or employee satisfaction. Those findings underscore why aggressive policies that play well in finance hubs can misfire in markets where labor has more leverage. 

The relative momentum in New York and Miami also relates to cost and commute realities. Even in transit-rich regions, the daily trip remains a major deterrent for many workers — a point reinforced by research into transportation and worker well-being. Recent studies link longer commutes with lower reported well-being and higher stress, while acknowledging mixed findings by mode and context.  

The strongest takeaway is simple enough for policy: Reduce the cost and friction of getting to the office if you want higher attendance.

Step back from New York and Miami — the two cities whose in-office days are up or at least nearly flat — and the spread is striking. Placer.ai’s data show nationwide office visits are still down 21.8 percent versus 2019, even after a 10.7 percent gain year-over-year. Atlanta and Dallas have tightened their gaps to 14.8 percent less than 2019 and 18.3 percent less — better than the national average — whereas Denver office visits remain roughly 40 percent below 2019.

San Francisco office visits are still 34 percent behind their 2019 levels, despite 22 percent year-over-year growth for July. These data points capture a national landscape where finance-forward metros are going back to the office, diversified markets are stabilizing in a hybrid equilibrium, and tech hubs are transforming more slowly.

That divergence matters for public finance and street-level vitality. Even as availability begins to ease nationally, vacancy in tech-centric cities remains elevated and foot traffic patterns skew toward peak collaboration days rather than five weekly uniform commutes. The report notes that San Francisco’s June 2025 office vacancy rate (28 percent), Seattle’s (27 percent) and Austin’s (28 percent) show that the recovery is uneven. National averages can mislead operators when tech is so much slower to go back and there is an oscillation between anchor days, remote days and surge days.

If July was the busiest in-office month since early 2020, it still left a structural gap that looks durable. The report emphasizes employee preferences that have barely budged since 2022, citing Gallup’s hybrid indicator and related survey data.

Sixty percent of remote-capable workers prefer hybrid and roughly one-third prefer fully remote, with fewer than one in 10 choosing full-time on-site. That preference has consequences: Sixty-four percent of remote workers say they would be extremely likely to look elsewhere if flexibility were revoked. Leaders can recognize the ceiling that such preferences place on daily attendance, or they can spend political capital chasing a 2019 target that no longer exists.

Commute economics also bite. The report synthesizes 2025 findings that employees point to commute cost as their largest barrier to more frequent office attendance, with estimates of weekly driving and parking outlays that can add thousands of dollars per year to household budgets. This is where city context shows up in the numbers: New York’s reinvigorated transit network eases reentry to Midtown and Lower Manhattan. Metros with weaker or costlier commutes face a steeper climb.

None of this is an argument against time in the office. But it is an argument against pretending that office time, by itself, fixes performance. The Pitt research team found no evidence that mandates lifted firm performance or employee satisfaction, linking strict return-to-office rules to higher attrition among senior and high-skilled people, plus longer times to fill roles. That is a talent tax, and it lands harder in markets where employees have more options. 

What tends to work, across markets, looks more like magnet than mandate. Anchoring teams on specific in-office days aligned to project rhythms, designing spaces for collision and apprenticeship rather than rows of assigned seats, and lowering commute friction by subsidizing transit and parking are the practical levers that show up in stronger peak-day utilization. In Chicago, for instance, early 2025 peak-day office utilization above 70 percent coexisted with hybrid schedules and aggressive quality upgrades in the best submarkets — a reminder that space strategy and experience design, not edicts, drive meaningful occupancy. 

New York and Miami prove that firm policies plus supportive urban infrastructure can deliver full or near-full office attendance. They do not prove that every city will, or should, follow the same path. The national baseline is improving, yet the clearest signal in 2025 is the divergence itself, from finance-centric hubs that have largely restored old patterns, to diversified metros that are stabilizing at hybrid levels, to tech centers that are rebuilding on a different foundation.

The costs of rigid mandates are real, from attrition among top performers to commute burdens that depress well-being, and leaders who ignore those costs will spend more time replacing people than building momentum. The better play is to design offices and policies that earn the commute, accept a lower but more intentional baseline, and measure outcomes on the days that matter most.

Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored the best-seller “Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.” 

Open Country Dairy acquires milk-processing peer Miraka

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avrotusa
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Open Country Dairy in New Zealand has agreed to acquire the Māori-owned dairy business Miraka for an undisclosed sum.

Both companies are engaged in milk processing to produce milk powders and dairy ingredients. Open Country Dairy also makes cheeses under its own brand, while Miraka offers its namesake line of UHT milk, as well as acting as a co-manufacturer.

Mark de Lautour, CEO of Open Country Dairy, said the acquisition aligns with the company’s goal to enhance its presence across the Central North Island.

Open Country Dairy currently operates four production facilities in New Zealand, located in Horotiu, Waharoa, Whanganui, and Awarua.

The acquisition comes shortly after Open Country Dairy agreed to purchase Mataura Valley Milk from the A2 Milk Co. and China Animal Husbandry Group. That deal will add a fifth site to its manufacturing network located in Gore, New Zealand.

Miraka, meanwhile, owns a processing plant in Mokai, 30km north-west of Taupō.

De Lautour said in a statement: “We really believe that our 100% NZ-owned company culture, strong customer relationships and scale makes this a good, strategic fit.

“If you look at where our plants are based, we already have a very strong presence in northern Waikato and Taranaki/Manawatu. Adding Miraka, which is geographically located in the middle of these two areas, gives us a solid footprint into the southern Waikato.”

Miraka will retain its brand name and continue operating under its own identity. Individual milk supply agreements will also remain unaffected.

Bruce Scott, board chair of Miraka, said in a separate statement that Miraka has “grown to become New Zealand’s second-largest Māori-owned [dairy] exporter” over the last 15 years.

He added: “However, there are significant challenges that come with being a standalone regional processor operating in a global market. Under Open Country Dairy’s ownership, our Miraka whānau will be part of a strong NZ-owned network serving the global dairy market.”

Miraka commenced operations in 2010 and exported its first batch of milk powder in August 2011.

The company, which also produces frozen milk concentrate and cream, has since expanded its production capabilities, processing approximately 300 million litres of milk annually.

“Open Country Dairy acquires milk-processing peer Miraka ” was originally created and published by Just Food, a GlobalData owned brand.

 


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Basketball Hall of Fame – Few centers can match Dwight Howard’s peak

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  • Zach KramSep 2, 2025, 08:00 AM ET

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      Zach Kram is a national NBA writer for ESPN.com, specializing in short- and long-term trends across the league’s analytics landscape. He previously worked at The Ringer covering the NBA and MLB. You can follow Zach on X via @zachkram.

Dwight Howard will be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend, part of an eight-person class of basketball luminaries. Howard is a deserving first-ballot entrant — an eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA honoree and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.

Though it’s difficult to call a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee underrated, that label applies to the newest center in Springfield, Massachusetts. As of 2021, Howard was one of 26 players in NBA history with at least five first-team All-NBA nods. The other 25 were named to the league’s 75th Anniversary Team that year. Howard was not.

The other players with three or more first-team All-NBA appearances who didn’t make the 75th Anniversary Team predated the 3-point era, meaning Howard is the only modern player with anywhere near his level of accolades not to get the honor.

But Howard’s game had warts. In the same mold as other dominant centers such as Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’Neal, he was a terrible free throw shooter (career 57%). He committed twice as many turnovers as assists. He was an inefficient scorer in the post, despite often demanding the ball down low: We don’t have good tracking data from Howard’s prime, but since 2013-14, he ranks 62nd out of 65 players with at least 1,000 post-ups in points per play, according to GeniusIQ.

But Howard’s historical underrating seems more a reflection of how his career played out.

Contrast Howard with Robert Parish, a paragon of longevity. The two Hall of Fame centers have similar counting stats and a similar career wins above replacement total, per Basketball-Reference. But they reached those ultimate outcomes via different paths: Howard peaked and fell quickly, while Parish took the slow-and-steady approach.

First 8 seasons
Howard: 78.6 WAR
Parish: 54.3 WAR

Rest of career
Howard: 27 WAR
Parish: 55.4 WAR

The differences in peak value meant Howard made eight career All-NBA teams, and Parish made just two (one second, one third). However, Parish continued to produce throughout his 30s and won three titles with the 1980s Celtics (plus a fourth as an end-of-bench player for the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls), so he made the 75th Anniversary Team while Howard missed out.

Howard, conversely, accrued very little value over the second half of his career. He was an All-Star for the last time at age 28, and in his 30s, he transformed from the most-sought-after center in the league to an NBA vagabond. Howard changed teams for each of his last six seasons, toiling away in relative anonymity in the Southeast Division for half that time before a successful stint back in Los Angeles, where Howard and JaVale McGee formed a center rotation that allowed Anthony Davis to play his preferred power forward position. Either Howard or McGee started 18 of the Los Angeles Lakers‘ 21 playoff games en route to the 2019-20 title.

The long, undistinguished final arc of Howard’s career masks just how extraordinarily high he climbed at his peak. (And I don’t mean how high he literally climbed, although he did that too, with his “sticker dunk” at the 2007 slam dunk contest.)

Howard is one of 19 players in NBA history with five consecutive first-team All-NBA nods. The only other centers on that list are Shaq and George Mikan. The only other 21st-century players are LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Giannis Antetokounmpo, O’Neal, Luka Doncic and Kevin Durant — who, with the exception of the young Doncic, are acknowledged as top-25 players in NBA history.

Critics would contend that Howard so thoroughly dominated the All-NBA voting because of a lesser caliber of competition in that era. This idea has some merit: Though the center landscape wasn’t quite as barren during Howard’s reign as it would be half a decade later — the All-NBA centers in 2015-16 were DeAndre Jordan, DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Drummond — the second- and third-team All-NBA centers behind Howard were Amar’e Stoudemire (three times), Yao Ming (twice), Suns-era Shaq, Andrew Bogut, Al Horford, Andrew Bynum and Tyson Chandler. There are good players on that list, but few Hall of Famers.

But Howard’s awards weren’t just a reflection of positional scarcity. His MVP finishes in those five seasons were second, fourth, fourth, fifth and seventh; he was a legitimate top-five player for his entire peak, regardless of position.

Over the first half of his career, Howard was a two-way force. He was always available — in his first seven seasons, Howard played 82 games five times and never fewer than 78 — and he is one of four players with at least three Defensive Player of the Year trophies (and the only player with three in a row). Howard was worlds better than the other three — Rudy Gobert, Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace — on offense; Howard finished his career with more points than Mutombo and Wallace combined.

Howard’s strengths also helped the Orlando Magic craft a modern style before it was popular. With shooters such as Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Ryan Anderson filling the frontcourt next to a dominant center, the late-aughts Magic were ahead of their time. During Howard’s five-year peak, which coincided with Stan Van Gundy’s five years as Orlando’s coach, the Magic led the league in 3-point attempt rate every season, per Cleaning the Glass, while their defense allowed the lowest rate of shots at the rim in four of those seasons. (Orlando finished second in that stat in the fifth year.)

Van Gundy and Howard’s teammates at the time credit Howard’s presence in the paint for facilitating that approach. While his teammates let fly from deep, Howard led the NBA in dunks for six consecutive seasons, from 2005-06 through 2010-11.

This collection of Magic players broke onto the national stage in the 2009 Eastern Conference finals, when Howard helped author one of the great playoff upsets of the 21st century. Orlando thoroughly beat the 66-win Cleveland Cavaliers, who had gone 8-0 in their first two playoff series, and prevented the much-anticipated Finals showdown between Kobe and LeBron. Howard scored 40 points in Orlando’s conference finals clincher, and during that postseason, he averaged 20 points, 15 rebounds and 2.6 blocks.

The players who averaged at least 20 points and 15 rebounds while making the Finals in a the same postseason is a who’s who of the best centers in NBA history: Bob Pettit (four times), Chamberlain (three), Shaq (two), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (two), Bill Russell (two), Howard, Duncan, Moses Malone, Dave Cowens, Elgin Baylor and Mikan.

Howard also earns intangible points because he was the starting center on the 2008 gold medal-winning Redeem Team, and he (along with Nate Robinson) helped rejuvenate the All-Star Weekend dunk contest after a down period for the event.

Unfortunately, Howard’s intangibles were not always so positive. And his career tumbled after 2012, when Howard requested out of Orlando. He was traded to the Lakers, sparking the memorable “Now this is going to be fun” Sports Illustrated cover, and, perhaps most important from a long-term perspective, had back surgery.

In retrospect, Howard’s most representative team wasn’t the Magic or the Lakers, but rather the Houston Rockets, with whom he played for three years after his first unsatisfying Lakers stint. Howard fulfilled the life cycle of an actual rocket: He burned bright and hot and reached incredible heights before ultimately falling to Earth.

Chloe Malle to become top editor at American Vogue after Anna Wintour steps aside

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Chloe Malle will become the top editor at American Vogue after Dame Anna Wintour stepped aside as editor-in-chief, the publication has announced.

The 39-year-old, daughter of actress Candice Bergen, worked her way up the fashion magazine ranks over the past 14 years to become editor of Vogue.com and host the magazine’s podcast The Run Through.

Malle’s appointment marks a new era for the magazine, considered one of the most influential and glamorous fashion publications.

Wintour, the British-born fashion magnate, announced she was leaving the role in June after holding the position for 37 years. The magazine said she would retain senior positions at its publisher.

During her tenure at Vogue, Malle has reportedly been responsible for securing the magazine’s photoshoot with Naomi Biden for her 2022 White House wedding, as well as an interview with Lauren Sanchez ahead of her wedding to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Before she began at Vogue, Malle covered real estate for the New York Observer. Her next gig as a freelance writer led her to Vogue where she began a full time position as the social editor in 2011.

“I was hesitant when I was interviewing, because fashion is not one of my main interests in life, and I wanted to be a writer more than an editor, but I was so seduced by the Vogue machine that I couldn’t resist,” Malle told the publication Into the Gloss in 2013.

Like her predecessor, Dame Anna, Malle has not shied away from politics while at Vogue.

Both on her social media and on her podcast she has supported Democratic causes and candidates.

During a 2024 episode of her podcast, which aired after Donald Trump was re-elected as US president, Malle expressed her disappointment with the election result.

It is unclear exactly when the transition from Dame Anna to Malle as chief of the magazine will be, but the 75-year-old is not completely leaving the picture.

Dame Anna will remain publisher Condé Nast’s chief content officer, a role she was appointed to in 2020, which means she will still oversee Vogue’s content, along with the company’s other titles such as GQ, Wired and Tatler.

Supreme Court must not abandon Native Americans

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avrotusa
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As the Supreme Court closed its latest term, it did so by denying justice to Native Americans—yet again. With its refusal to hear Apache Stronghold v. United States, the court effectively allowed a foreign-owned mining company to desecrate a sacred Apache site — Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, or Oak Flat — opening the door for it to be swallowed by a massive crater in the name of copper and profit. It’s a decision that echoes centuries of erasure, colonization, and corporate greed—and one that sends a chilling message to Indigenous Peoples across the world: that our prayers, our places, and our people remain expendable. 

The tragedy here is not just what the court failed to do — but who failed to act. In a bitter twist, the court’s three liberal Justices — long seen as allies to Indigenous communities — declined to join Justices Gorsuch and Thomas in defending Native religious freedom. This was not a fringe case. It was a defining test of whether the promise of the First Amendment applies to all faiths, or only to the dominant ones. 

Chí’chil Biłdagoteel is not just land. It is the spiritual heart of the Western Apache. It is where ceremonies are held, where language is spoken, and where generations have connected with the Creator. For decades, it was protected — until 2014, when mining lobbyists quietly inserted a midnight amendment into a must-pass defense bill, transferring the land to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of two of the world’s largest mining conglomerates, Rio Tinto and BHP. Their plan: a vast mine that will collapse the sacred site into a two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep pit—permanently ending Apache religious practices tied to that land. 

In response, Apache Stronghold — a grassroots coalition of Apache spiritual leaders and their allies—brought suit, arguing that destroying Oak Flat would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But four years of litigation have not delivered justice. In 2024, the Ninth Circuit, in a 6-5 ruling, rejected the Apaches’ claims, saying that reducing Oak Flat to rubble doesn’t burden their religious freedom. Every judge that sided with the mining company was Republican-appointed. Every Democratic appointee dissented, calling the ruling a “tragic error.” 

The Supreme Court had the chance to correct that error. Instead, it declined to act — despite clear precedent supporting religious liberty in far less consequential contexts. Just this summer, the court ruled in favor of parents who objected to gay- and transgender-affirming books in public school (Mahmoud v. Taylor), declaring that merely exposing a child to ideas contrary to a parent’s faith burdens religious freedom. Meanwhile, the court has refused to even hear a case about the destruction of a Native sacred site. 

To their credit, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented, calling the court’s inaction a “grave mistake.” Gorsuch, who has a strong record on Indian law, rightly warned that “before allowing the government to destroy the Apaches’ sacred site, this court should at least have troubled itself to hear their case.” He’s right.

What’s more troubling is the silence of the court’s progressive wing. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson could have joined the dissent to form a majority. They did not. Their absence is not only deeply painful — it’s strategic malpractice. If the court is already expanding religious freedom in sweeping terms, progressive justices should be using that very doctrine to protect Native peoples whose traditions predate the Constitution itself. 

The Apaches have now asked the court to reconsider in light of Mahmoud. Their argument is powerful: If reading a book burdens religious freedom, then surely obliterating the cradle of an entire religion does too.  

While the Supreme Court considers their case, the fight in the lower courts continues. Just this week, in two of the three related lawsuits, the Ninth Circuit temporarily blocked the government from giving Oak Flat to Resolution Copper. That ruling temporarily safeguards the sacred site and allows the various lawsuits, including Apache Stronghold’s, to continue before Oak Flat is destroyed. 

But this issue is even bigger than Oak Flat. It is about whether Indigenous religions deserve equal standing in the eyes of the law. It is about whether we will continue a pattern of dispossession cloaked in bureaucracy — or rise to meet this moment with moral clarity and courage. 

As a global advocate working with Indigenous nations across five continents, I see this case for what it truly is: a litmus test for the soul of the American legal system. If this country claims to uphold religious liberty, self-determination, and justice, then it must apply those principles to the First Peoples of this land — not just to the politically powerful or religiously familiar. 

The court still has time to change course. The stakes are clear. The world is watching. 

Fawn R. Sharp is the 23rd President of the National Congress of American Indians, former President of the Quinault Indian Nation, and serves as a Global Board Member of The Nature Conservancy and a Council Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Natural Capital.

Prosper Stars & Stripes’ Example on Focusing on Unique Business Opportunities for Superior Returns

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Prosper Stars & Stripes, a long/short equity fund, recently released its second quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund underperformed and generated a net return of +9.6% compared to a total return of +8.5% for the long-only small-cap Russell 2000 Index (the “Russell”), and a total return of +5.0% for the long/short equity hedge fund peer group represented by the HFRX Equity Hedge Index (the “HFRX”). For the six months ended 2025, Prosper Stars & Stripes returned a net return of (0.8%) compared to (1.8%) for the Russell and +5.9% for the HFRI. The portfolio demonstrated strong outperformance relative to its net exposure during the quarter. In the second quarter of 2025, US equities reversed the declines seen in the first quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

In its second-quarter 2025 investor letter, Prosper Stars & Stripes highlighted stocks such as FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI). FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) owns and acquires aviation equipment for the transportation of goods and people. The one-month return of FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) was 12.04%, and its shares gained 20.37% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 29, 2025, FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) stock closed at $153.85 per share, with a market capitalization of $15.781 billion.

Prosper Stars & Stripes stated the following regarding FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:

“While the macro backdrop informs our portfolio positioning, our primary focus is on identifying unique businesses we believe can deliver improving profits, leading to higher valuations and superior returns on our long positions. We have consistently invested in the aerospace sector, given its steady growth, attractive margins for value-added suppliers, regulatory barriers to entry, and emphasis on quality and reliability. The fund often finds opportunities that share similar structural dynamics, even if they involve different companies. Our 2023 investment in FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) is a representative case. The company was undergoing corporate change while addressing the growing demand for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (“MRO”) services in commercial aerospace. The investment performed very well, and we exited the position after the stock appreciated into the upper end of our valuation range and the investment case had largely matured.”

FTAI Aviation Ltd. (FTAI): Among Billionaire Quants’ Two Sigma’s 10 Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential
FTAI Aviation Ltd. (FTAI): Among Billionaire Quants’ Two Sigma’s 10 Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential

FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 48 hedge fund portfolios held FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) at the end of the second quarter, which was 49 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of FTAI Aviation Ltd. (NASDAQ:FTAI) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you’re looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

UK borrowing costs hit 27-year high adding to pressure on Reeves

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Tom EspinerBusiness reporter, BBC News

Getty Images Rachel Reeves wears a blue suit as she addresses a conference in Northern IrelandGetty Images

Long-term government borrowing costs in the UK reached their highest level since 1998 on Tuesday, adding to the pressure on the chancellor ahead of the Budget.

The interest rate on 30-year government bonds, known as the yield, jumped to 5.698%, its highest level for 27 years, as worries grew about the state of the government’s finances.

There are rising expectations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will increase taxes in the Budget later this year in order to meet her financial rules.

On the currency markets, the pound also fell more than 1% against the dollar on Tuesday morning.

Government bonds have been under pressure globally for a number of months, in part due to volatile US trade policy.

The yield on 30-year UK government bonds – known as gilts – has been rising for some months, and this adds to the cost of UK government debt due to higher interest payments.

Government forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) takes borrowing costs into account when looking at whether the chancellor is meeting her self-imposed fiscal rules.

When she became chancellor, Reeves set out two rules for government borrowing – that day-to-day spending would be paid for with government revenue, which is mainly taxes, and that debt must be falling as a share of national income by the end of a five-year period.

Part of the reason Reeves is under pressure is that her financial buffer to stick to these rules is a relatively slim £10bn.

Harvard wants to 'queer education' — but who will actually teach education?

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Harvard is proving once again that it is no longer a bastion of academic rigor, but a glorified re-education camp. America’s oldest university is deputizing teachers to push fringe ideologies on the nation’s kids.

This fall, aspiring teachers can stroll through Harvard Yard to enroll in “Queering Education,” where they’ll sit through lectures on “practices, curricula, programs, and policies” to promote “gender and sexual identity development” for U.S. children and teens. They’ll dissect “the ‘hidden curriculum’ of heteronormativity and cisnormativity” in schools and learn how to shape “young people’s notions of gender and sexuality.” Future teachers will learn “why and how heteronormative schooling detrimentally impacts all students.”

The media swore that no one was pushing weird gender ideologies, critical race theory, or other radical philosophies in schools. Yet Harvard, arguably the most influential education school in the nation, has entire courses — and an initiative called QueerEd — dedicated to exactly that agenda.

Their course catalog is a progressive wish list: “Critical Race Theory in Education,” “Queer Nation: LGBTQ Protest, Politics, and Policy in the United States,” and “Emancipatory Inquiry: Listening, Learning, and Acting for Social Change.” That last one sounds tame, until you see from its description that it covers queer, feminist, and decolonial theories, plus walking methodologies and arts-based research.

Forget evidence-based scholarship. These future professors can finger-paint and walk their dogs for academic credit.

The numbers don’t lie. The words “equity” and “LGBTQ” appear 399 and 25 times in Harvard’s course catalog. “Literacy” shows up just 88 times, and “phonics” is nowhere to be found. Their priorities are clear — and they are not about educating children.

This ideological rot is not at all unique to Harvard. It’s the norm in teacher prep programs nationwide. The University of Wisconsin system has discussion circles reading “Anti-Racist Baby” and making Black Lives Matter friendship bracelets. The University of Florida fills its syllabi with such critical race theory icons as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gloria Ladson-Billings. Columbia has a course on “Exploring Gender and Sexuality in Everyday Curriculum Practices.” Some of the most assigned authors, like Paulo Freire and Gloria Watkins, are outright Marxists.

No wonder our schools are producing activists instead of educators.

Research confirms that teachers from these programs are no more effective than those trained through alternative routes or even career-switchers with no formal training in education.

If you’re wondering how schools went woke so fast, such teacher prep programs as these are ground zero, explicitly training teachers to indoctrinate the next generation.

This reality isn’t a secret. The former president of Columbia teachers college confirmed in 2006 that “The education our teachers receive today is determined more by ideology and personal predilection than the needs of our children.” Education Professor David Steiner admitted teacher prep programs are “intellectually barren” and more about shaping “the fundamental worldview of future teachers” than equipping them to educate anyone.

It is very tough to reform private institutions like Harvard — government oversight is limited. But there’s no reason public grants should fund this nonsense. Harvard’s Gender Equity Office and courses like “Queering Education” need to go for the university to regain any credibility.

For public institutions, solutions are much clearer: accrediting standards should demand training in classroom management and proven instructional methods, not ideological crusades. State laws can pull funding from programs rooted in radical ideologies. And if all else fails, follow the University of Chicago’s 1997 playbook and abolish these programs outright.

Policymakers cannot let this sham continue. Teachers deserve training that makes them effective, not indoctrinated. Students deserve teachers who prioritize learning over ideology. It’s time to pull the plug on this madness and get education back to basics.

Daniel Buck is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network, and a proud former English teacher.

Volkswagen labour boss urges Blume to give up dual-CEO role, memo says

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avrotusa
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Volkswagen’s labour boss on Tuesday increased pressure on CEO Oliver Blume to give up his dual role as the leader of both the Wolfsburg-based carmaker and its Porsche AG unit, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

Blume’s twin posts have been in focus among shareholders and workers since Porsche’s listing as a separate entity in 2022, with investors repeatedly calling for him to step down from one of the positions over governance concerns.

“The chief executive cannot be a part-time boss in Wolfsburg and spend the rest of his time at Porsche. This situation must come to an end,” Daniela Cavallo, who heads Volkswagen’s works council, said at a staff meeting on Wednesday, according to the memo.

Last week, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Porsche has begun the search for a successor to Blume.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz and Christina Amann, Editing by Rachel More)

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