By COLLIN BINKLEY and DIDI TANG, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Frayed by tariff wars and political battles, the academic ties between the U.S. and China are now facing their greatest threat yet as the Trump administration promises to revoke visas for an unknown number of Chinese students and tighten future visa screening.

In a brief statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. will “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Community Party or studying “critical fields.”

Rubio’s statement threatened to widen a chasm between the two nations, building on a yearslong Republican campaign to rid U.S. campuses of Chinese influence and insulate America’s research from its strongest economic and military competitor.

Rubio’s announcement has rattled Chinese students and drawn swift condemnation from the Chinese government and some U.S. lawmakers. It also raised alarm at U.S. campuses that host more than 275,000 students from China and benefit from their tuition payments.

FILE – A group of Florida International University students protest against cuts in federal funding and an agreement by campus police to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on the FIU campus on a day of protests around the country in support of higher education, April 17, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

Chinese graduate student Kesong Cao, 26, decided to abandon his studies in the U.S. because of Trump’s policies.

“I do not feel welcome anymore,” said Cao, a student of cognitive psychology at the University of Wisconsin, who was waiting at Seattle’s airport Thursday to board a flight home to China.

Cao spent eight years in the U.S. and once dreamed of staying as a professor. “Now it seems like that dream is falling apart,” he said. “It’s a good time to jump ship and think about what I can give back to my own country.”

The scope of the visa crackdown wasn’t immediately clear, with no explanation on what would constitute ties to the Communist Party. But the impact could be significant if the government goes after any student with family members in the party, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.

Academic ties with China were built over decades

Academic leaders in the U.S. have spent years trying to tamp down growing hostility against Chinese students and scholars, saying the benefits of the relationship outweigh the risks. Collaboration between the countries produces tens of thousands of scientific papers a year, yielding major advancements in fields from earthquake prediction to disease treatment.

The academic alliance has been built up over decades since both sides resumed diplomatic ties in the 1970s. Chinese researchers are the most frequent international co-authors for U.S. researchers in science and engineering journal articles. Both sides are research powerhouses.

Any move that prevents the U.S. from welcoming the smartest people in the world is an “extremely bad idea,” said L. Rafael Reif, a former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who pushed back against anti-China sentiment during President Donald Trump’s first term.

“This administration will be known historically as the one that began the decline of the U.S. by completely failing to understand the importance of science and technology — and the importance of gathering the most talented human capital from the world to work together towards a thriving United States,” Reif said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Related Articles

Trump suffered ‘mental anguish’ from disputed CBS News interview with Harris, lawyer says

White House acknowledges problems in RFK Jr.’s MAHA report

State Department notifies Congress of reorganization plan with bigger cuts to programs and staff

Trump meets with the Federal Reserve chairman he has repeatedly scorned

Man who blamed exposure to far-right content gets 3 years for threatening election officials

Erica Zhang, who graduated from George Washington University in December and is awaiting approval of her green card, said the new policy is “horrifying.”

“This is racism, any division based on identity and nationality is racism,” Zhang said. “It is just a start, it will expand to a bigger group of Chinese, not just Chinese students.”

During his first term, Trump shortened the visas of some Chinese graduate students from five years to one, and he signed an order barring Chinese students from schools with direct links to the People’s Liberation Army.

More recently, the administration has taken sweeping action against international students. It revoked the legal status for thousands of foreign students in the U.S. this spring before reversing itself. The administration is also trying to block Harvard from enrolling for students, a move put on hold by a judge.

David Lampton, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, is worried the U.S. will lose talent. “American universities and society have always successfully relied on their single-minded search for the world’s best brains,” he said.

Yet critics say it’s a lopsided relationship that primarily benefits China.

Some conservatives say the exchanges are a US security risk

A State Department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, told reporters Thursday that the U.S. “will not tolerate the CCP’s exploitation of U.S universities or theft of U.S. research, intellectual property or technologies to grow its military power, conduct intelligence collection or repress voices of opposition.”

House Republicans issued a report last year finding that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding has gone toward research that ultimately boosted Chinese advancements in artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology and nuclear weapons. The report argued China’s academic collaborations served as “Trojan horses for technology transfer,” accusing China of “insidious” exploitation of academic cooperation.

At least three American schools have ended their partnerships in China, including the University of Michigan and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Eastern Michigan University was the latest to terminate a Chinese partnership, just hours before Rubio’s announcement.

Critics also point to the imbalance in student exchange — only a few hundred U.S. students study abroad in China a year, compared to about 370,000 from China who studied in the U.S. in 2018. President Xi Jinping in 2023 launched a campaign to invite 50,000 young Americans to visit China on exchange and study programs.

U.S. universities themselves have come to rely on Chinese students. Even as numbers level off, Chinese students remain the second-largest group of international students in the U.S. behind those from India. Foreign students are typically charged higher tuition rates, subsidizing the education for American students.

Gary Locke, a former U.S. ambassador to China, said the visa policy would “adversely and profoundly” affect U.S. higher education, research institutions, scientific discovery and startups.

“The real story isn’t just about visa numbers — it’s also about how this changes the competitive landscape for talent, innovation and economic growth in America. Treating every Chinese student as a security threat distorts facts and fuels discrimination against Chinese Americans,” said Locke, now chair of Committee of 100, a group of prominent Chinese Americans focused on U.S.-China relations and issued faced by Chinese citizens in the U.S.

Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Matthew Lee and Fu Ting in Washington, and Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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.

By ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Smokey Robinson has filed a defamation lawsuit against four former housekeepers who accused him of rape and prompted a police investigation.

Robinson and his wife Frances Robinson filed the counterclaim Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court against the women and their lawyers, whose allegations, they say, were “fabricated in an extortionate scheme.”

The filing is a fast and forceful legal and public pushback from the 85-year-old Motown music luminary in response to the women’s May 6 lawsuit and a May 15 announcement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that its Special Victims Bureau is “actively investigating criminal allegations” against Robinson.

The women are seeking at least $50 million, alleging Smokey Robinson repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted them in his home when they worked for him between 2007 and 2024. They said Frances Robinson, a co-defendant, enabled him and created an abusive workplace.

The counterclaim opens with friendly text messages from the women to contradict their claims against Robinson, whose songs, including “Tears of a Clown” and “The Tracks of My Tears,” established him among the biggest hitmakers of the 1960s.

The filing says the women “stayed with the Robinsons year after year,” vacationed with them, celebrated holidays with them, exchanged gifts with them, asked for tickets to his concerts, and sought and received help from them including money for dental surgery, financial support for a disabled family member, and “even a car.”

The filing — which includes photos from the vacations and gatherings as exhibits — says that despite the couple’s generosity, the women “secretly harbored resentment for the Robinsons and sought to enrich themselves through the Robinsons’ wealth.”

“Unfortunately, the depths of Plaintiffs’ avarice and greed know no bounds,” the counterclaim says. “During the very time that the Robinsons were being extraordinarily generous with Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs were concocting an extortionate plan to take everything from the Robinsons.”

Related Articles

Ex-assistant testifies Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sexually assaulted her and used violence to get his way

Victoria’s Secret website is down in the US as the lingerie seller addresses a ‘security incident’

The world’s longest living pygmy hippo in captivity is a California resident

Texas push to ban minors under 18 from social media fades with time running out

Looking to keep wildlife out of the ‘emergency room,’ states expand managers’ role

John Harris and Herbert Hayden, attorneys for the former housekeepers, said in a statement that the defamation suit “is nothing more than an attempt to silence and intimidate the survivors of Mr. Robinson’s sexual battery and assault. It is a baseless and vindictive legal maneuver designed to re-victimize, shift blame and discourage others from coming forward.”

The lawyers said they intend to get the Robinsons’ lawsuit thrown out by invoking California’s laws against using the courts to silence and intimidate people who sue.

The four women, whose names are withheld in their lawsuit, each allege that Robinson would wait until they were alone with him in his Los Angeles house and then sexually assault and rape them. One woman said she was assaulted at least 20 times while working for Robinson from 2012 until 2024. Another said she worked for him from 2014 until 2020 and was assaulted at least 23 times.

The Sheriff’s Department would give no details on its investigation beyond confirming its existence.

Robinson, who was a central figure in the Motown Records machine with his group the Miracles and as a solo artist, is a member of both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

By Deena Shanker and Will Kubzansky, Bloomberg News

Mars Inc.’s Skittles candies are no longer being made with titanium dioxide, a chemical that whitens foods, brightens colors and makes candy appear shiny, the company confirmed to Bloomberg News.

The ingredient was removed from all Skittles production at the end of last year, a spokesperson said.

The additive was banned in the European Union in 2022 over concerns that nanoparticles of the substance might accumulate in the body and damage DNA. It has also come under scrutiny by the Department of Health and Human Services in recent months under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon attend a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission Event in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In 2023, groups including the Environmental Working Group and the Center for Food Safety filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to remove the approval of titanium dioxide as a color additive in food. That petition was still under review as of March 2024, according to the FDA website.

Titanium dioxide hasn’t been banned in the U.S., though Mars pledged to stop using the additive in 2016. It was still listed as an ingredient in Sour Skittles earlier this year. In a statement to Bloomberg News in January, the company said its use of the ingredient was “in compliance with government regulations.”

The company is now in the process of updating its website to reflect the reformulation, though shoppers may see products containing titanium dioxide on shelves until those products sell through.

The chewy candies still use synthetic dyes including Red 40, Yellow 5 and Blue 1, according to their labels. HHS and FDA said in April that they’ll work with food producers to eliminate the dyes by the end of 2026. Industry groups have said no agreement exists on the matter.

Related Articles

Ex-assistant testifies Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sexually assaulted her and used violence to get his way

Victoria’s Secret website is down in the US as the lingerie seller addresses a ‘security incident’

The world’s longest living pygmy hippo in captivity is a California resident

Texas push to ban minors under 18 from social media fades with time running out

Looking to keep wildlife out of the ‘emergency room,’ states expand managers’ role

Other foods — including Mondelez International Inc.’s Sour Patch Kids Watermelon, Kraft Heinz Co.’s Lunchables Cookie Dunks and JM Smucker Co.’s Donettes — currently use titanium dioxide. It’s also a common ingredient in sunscreens and white paints.

Mondelez recommended Bloomberg News reach out to the Consumer Brands Association, an industry group. “Companies adhere to the rigorous science and risk-based safety standards established by the FDA for the use of titanium dioxide as a color additive in food,” said Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy for the group.

Kraft Heinz and JM Smucker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. JM Smucker told Bloomberg in March that its products and labeling abide by FDA regulations.

The White House’s “Make America Healthy Again” report listed titanium dioxide as an additive of “potential concern.” Earlier in May, the Food and Drug Administration announced it would speed up an existing review of the ingredient.

HHS didn’t respond to a request for comment on Skittles’ removal of titanium dioxide.

With assistance from Bill Haubert and Rachel Cohrs Zhang.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge declared Thursday that a man is mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of stalking Jennifer Aniston and crashing his car through her front gate.

The move in a Los Angeles County mental health court came after a second psychiatrist examined the defendant, Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, and reached the same conclusion as the first: that his mental health would not allow him to answer to felony charges of vandalism and stalking of the “Friends” star.

“The court finds the defendant is not currently competent to stand trial,” Judge Maria Cavalluzzi said. “Criminal proceedings will remain suspended.”

Carwyle, 48, of Mississippi, has pleaded not guilty. He appeared behind glass in a custody area of the courtroom and did not speak. He looked vastly different than his previous two court hearings. His scraggly gray hair and beard had been shorn, and he was wearing bright yellow county jail clothing after previously appearing with bare shoulders, wrapped in a blanket-like smock meant for suicide prevention.

Carwyle had argued that he is competent, and exercised his right to a second opinion after an initial incompetence finding last week.

“It’s not the outcome my client would have preferred,” Deputy Public Defender Robert Krauss told the judge.

Related Articles

Ex-assistant testifies Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sexually assaulted her and used violence to get his way

Victoria’s Secret website is down in the US as the lingerie seller addresses a ‘security incident’

The world’s longest living pygmy hippo in captivity is a California resident

Texas push to ban minors under 18 from social media fades with time running out

Looking to keep wildlife out of the ‘emergency room,’ states expand managers’ role

A conviction on the charges, along with an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm, could bring up to three years in prison for Carwyle. The incompetence finding has no set end date but it is temporary, and the standard criminal process could resume later.

Cavalluzzi ordered more comprehensive mental evaluations to help determine where and how he’ll be held, and what his treatment will be. The judge will get a report on the results at a June 26 hearing, where Aniston or her attorney will be allowed to share her perspective on the case.

Aniston’s lawyer, Blair Berk, was in the courtroom observing Thursday, but did not speak. Berk and the deputy district attorney handling the case declined comment outside court.

Prosecutors allege Carwyle had been harassing Aniston with a flood of voicemail, email and social media messages for two years before driving his Chrysler PT Cruiser through the gate of her home in the wealthy Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles on May 5, causing major damage. A security guard stopped him in her driveway until police arrived. Authorities said Aniston was home at the time, but did not come into contact, and no one was injured.

Aniston became one of television’s biggest stars in her 10 years on NBC’s “Friends,” from 1994 until 2004. She won an Emmy Award for best lead actress in a comedy for the role, and she has been nominated for nine more. She currently stars in “The Morning Show” on Apple TV+.