Visa

• American Medical Association warns that $100,000 H-1B visa application fees jeopardize physician recruitment for rural and underserved U.S. areas. • Costs deter international doctors, who fill 25% of rural positions, exacerbating provider shortages affecting 60 million Americans. • AMA urges policy reform to maintain care access amid growing demand.

Creator card is designed for people making money through TikTok Live, some of whom have complained of delays in paymentsTikTok and Visa have launched a debit card for content creators in the UK that they say will allow people to quickly access their earnings from the platform.The creator card is designed for the growing numbers of people making money through TikTok Live, a live streaming feature where creators receive virtual gifts from viewers that are later converted into cash. Continue reading...

• MarketBeat's stock screener identified five key financial stocks to research: Robinhood Markets, Visa, Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. II, Coinbase Global, and Intuit. • These equities represent diverse segments within the financial services sector, including fintech, payment processing, and software solutions. • The stocks merit investor attention for fundamental and technical analysis.

An eighty-three-year-old man successfully appealed the automatic revocation of his permanent resident visa after being sentenced to 14 months in prisonFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAn elderly UK man who served a prison sentence for sexually abusing his step granddaughter when she was nine years old has had his Australian visa reinstated by a tribunal because of his “strong ties to Australia”.The eighty-three-year-old was sentenced to 14 months prison in the Western Australia district court in February 2024 for molesting the girl in the presence of another child.In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

Politicians warn party’s pledge to ‘punish’ countries seeking justice for slavery will harm and isolate BritainCommonwealth politicians say they will not back down from seeking reparations as UK public figures, including a former Reform insider, warn the rightwing party’s pledge to “punish” countries seeking justice for slavery would harm and isolate Britain.This week, Reform UK said they would halt visas for nationals of countries formally demanding reparations from Britain if they took power. Continue reading...

The ‘bank is closed and the door is locked’, says Zia Yusuf as calls grow for compensation to remedy historical wrongsReform UK has said it would stop issuing visas to any person from a country which continues to demand compensation from the UK for its role in the transatlanctic trade in enslaved people.Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, told the Daily Telegraph that the call for reparations was “insulting”. Continue reading...

• Visa unveiled six AI-driven tools to automate charge dispute management for issuers, acquirers, and merchants, reducing manual reviews and fraud losses. • The tools, launched yesterday, aim to accelerate resolution processes across US payment networks. • This upgrade positions Visa at the forefront of AI-enhanced fintech security and efficiency.

• Visa introduced six AI tools on April 1, 2026, to modernize credit-card dispute processes for merchants, issuers, and acquirers using generative responses and predictive models. • The tools address over 103 million disputes processed in 2025, a 35% increase since 2019, with features like document summarization and centralized case management. • Deployment will streamline operations for US financial institutions, reducing resolution times and costs significantly.

Tony Burke says decisions about permanent stays should be ‘deliberate decisions of the government, not a random consequence of who booked a holiday’Iranian tourists will be banned from entering Australia for the next six months after the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, triggered tough new immigration laws over concerns visitors may not be able to return to Iran.The ban could apply to more than 7,000 Iranians with valid tourist visas – though some may still be given the chance to enter the country under special consideration. Continue reading...

Sudanese and Afghan students with offers to study in UK say government’s ‘emergency brake’ is discriminatoryThe women banned from studying in BritainSix students from Sudan and Afghanistan have accused the home secretary of racial discrimination and launched legal action to try to overturn a ban on them taking up university places in the UK.The students – five from Sudan and one from Afghanistan – have undergraduate degrees in medicine and science-based subjects and received offers from universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London. Continue reading...

Officials understood to be investigating use of visas by company linked to Ahmadi Religion of Peace and LightThe Home Office is investigating a company linked to a religious sect based in Cheshire over its use of immigration visas.The company under investigation is linked to the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a sect that blends tenets of Islam with conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and aliens controlling US presidents. Followers believe the sect’s leader, Abdullah Hashem, can cure the sick and make the moon disappear. About 100 of his followers live in a former orphanage in Crewe, in the north-west of England. Continue reading...

• The State Department announced on March 18 that effective April 2, 2026, citizens from 12 additional countries—Cambodia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Grenada, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, and Tunisia—must post bonds of up to $15,000 when applying for U.S. visas. • After April 2, the total number of countries subject to the visa bond requirement will expand to 50, primarily targeting nations with high overstay rates, particularly in Africa; visa applicants must post bonds ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 depending on their circumstances and consular officer discretion. • The Trump administration program, rolled out last year to combat visa overstays and illegal migration, has demonstrated effectiveness, with the State Department reporting that nearly 97% of almost 1,000 bond-posting applicants have not overstayed their visas.