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Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says his department will no longer award its own grants to businesses that employ H-1B visa holders. He has urged Governor Greg Abbott and other agencies to follow; Texas is home to more than 7 lakh Indian Americans.
WhatsApp groups are luring young Indians in the US into a 'free money' scheme: send money to India, then weeks later tell the US bank the transfer was unauthorised and get the dollars refunded. Experts warn of up to 30 years in US prison, and non-bailable cheating cases for the parents in India who receive the money.
Two days before the US midterms, Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico made masala dosas at an Indian restaurant in Irving, near Dallas, to reach Indian-American voters. A Texas Southern University poll shows his race with Republican Ken Paxton at 49% to 47%.
Students of California's Sahithi Kuchipudi Kala Kshetram performed Kuchipudi at Walt Disney World's Diwali Dance Festival 2026 in Florida. Telugu Times reports an audience of over 1,600.
TANA's Mid-Atlantic youth volunteers collected about 1,800 pounds of food in a drive launched on October 25 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and handed it to Grace House Ministries. The drive runs until November 30, and similar drives are planned at 18 other chapters in the region.
A US Department of Labor proposal to overhaul PERM labour certification, the first step towards most employer-sponsored green cards, cleared White House budget office (OMB) review on October 23. It focuses on recruitment rules and protections for laid-off US workers, and could affect H-1B workers waiting for green cards.
The US Department of Homeland Security has proposed a $70,000 fee for a student's first OPT period and $30,000 for later periods, including the STEM OPT extension. The rule is not in effect, and public comments are open until November 9.
Mississauga in Canada elects its mayor on Monday, October 26. Councillor Dipika Damerla, who was born in Hyderabad into a Telugu family, is one of the four main candidates.
25,321 Indian students entered the US on F and M visas in August 2026, down 39% from 41,540 a year earlier, according to US Commerce Department data. It is the lowest August figure since the pandemic year of 2020.
Sankara Nethralaya honoured Prasad Reddy Katamreddy, CEO of US firm Twisted X, and his wife Shobha Reddy with its Sankara Ratna award. Former Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu presented it at the hospital's Chennai headquarters.
Director S.S. Rajamouli told the São Paulo International Film Festival that Varanasi, starring Mahesh Babu, is five to six times bigger in scale than RRR. He said the shoot took 275 days, 40 fewer than RRR.
A devotee driving home from the Devi Parashakthi Temple in Pontiac, Michigan, was shot at on October 19 but escaped unhurt. The temple says police caught the suspect and confirmed the attack was random and not racially motivated.
Half a million people marched across France on Saturday. What began as a protest over leaking school roofs has collided with a debt crisis and a presidential race. The same anger is moving through Belgium, Italy, Albania, Spain and Delhi. Andhravani looks at the money, the politics, and the five ways this is likely to play out, including what it means for Telugu families.
South African jurist Navi Pillay, whose family roots trace to Tamil Nadu, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Because the UN commission she led found that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, Israel’s government and several advocacy groups have branded her antisemitic. This editorial argues that treating questions about a government’s conduct as hatred of a people shuts down legitimate debate and weakens the fight against real antisemitism.
Elon Musk has accused unnamed “oligarchs” of blocking Starlink in India and asked whether Mukesh Ambani is “the real boss of India.” The government calls the charge baseless. This Andhravani editorial looks at what Musk wants in India, why he is at odds with New Delhi and the Ambanis, and whether a trillionaire who spent heavily on US elections is in a position to call others oligarchs.
South African jurist Navi Pillay, 85, a daughter of a Tamil Indian-origin family from Durban, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law. From breaking barriers under apartheid to leading the UN’s human rights office and serving on international courts, her journey is a pride for both India and South Africa, and a powerful message of support for international justice at a time when it is under attack.
As India marks Gandhi Jayanti on October 2, this piece examines how far the world has traveled toward the nonviolence and truth Mahatma Gandhi preached. With fragile ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine, ongoing war in Sudan, and rising nationalism, trade barriers, and immigration restrictions worldwide, the gap between Gandhian ideals and global reality remains wide — even as pockets of diplomatic progress offer cautious hope.
President Donald Trump signed a new Executive Order and Proclamation on September 18, 2026, renewing the $100,000 H-1B fee first imposed a year ago and directing federal agencies to apply tighter scrutiny to H-1B petitions from employers with recent layoffs. The White House says H-1B filings from major IT outsourcing firms have already dropped 92% since the original fee took effect — a shift with major consequences for Indian and Telugu tech professionals seeking U.S. work visas.
