Category: ESTA News

New York State has issued a statewide burn ban.

According to New York State, the ban, which runs from the 2nd to the 15th, was implemented amidst the state’s prolonged drought and the peak of fall foliage season. The ban prohibits campfires, cooking fires, and weed burning without fire pits. However, backyard fire pits and enclosed fire pits less than 3 feet (90 centimeters) high and 4 feet (120 centimeters) long, wide, or in diameter are permitted. Cooking is also permitted in small, enclosed fire pits.

New York State currently has a ban on burning garbage and leaves outdoors.

“With the start of fall foliage season, outdoor activities are on the rise,” said New York Governor Kathy Hokul. “However, careless outdoor fires can endanger homes, businesses, and first responders. I hope this ban will help keep our forests and nature safe.”

The White House is “selecting areas for federal layoffs.” The Senate has once again rejected a short-term spending bill (a stopgap budget bill, CR) aimed at halting the temporary shutdown of the federal government. This means the shutdown, which includes budget cuts and suspensions for various programs and the potential for mass furloughs or layoffs of federal employees, will continue until next week.

The Senate held a plenary session on the 3rd to vote on the opposition Democratic Party’s stopgap budget bill, but it was defeated by a vote of 46 to 52. Currently, the Senate is split between Republicans and Democrats, with 53 seats and 47. Considering the absence of two members from each party, the vote remained evenly split, with all Republicans voting against and all Democrats voting in favor. This temporary budget bill extends the shutdown deadline to October 31st and includes provisions for extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a public health insurance plan demanded by the Democrats. The Republicans’ subsequent temporary budget bill was also defeated again. This temporary budget bill was defeated in the Senate on the 30th of last month and again on the 1st of this month. While Republicans hold a majority in the Senate with 53 seats, they need the support of at least seven of the 47 Democrats to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the budget bill. The vote that day was 54 in favor and 44 against. The vote on the 1st was 55 in favor and 45 against. This is a similar result considering the abstention of lawmakers. It extends the shutdown avoidance deadline to November 21st while maintaining current spending levels.

Concerns are being raised that the shutdown may be prolonged as attempts to pass the CR, the fourth since the 19th of last month, have repeatedly failed. President Donald Trump is already cutting budgets for large cities with Democratic mayors, the opposition party, and is embarking on a mass layoff of federal workers. The White House announced today that it is reviewing mass layoffs for federal workers. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said in a briefing, “The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is currently in constant communication with Cabinet secretaries and agencies to identify areas where layoffs and budget cuts are unavoidable.”

Meanwhile, Congress is reportedly planning its next vote on the temporary budget bill for the 6th.

As the stock price of American electric car company Tesla continues to rise, the net worth of CEO Elon Musk, the “world’s richest man,” has surpassed $500 billion (approximately 702 trillion won). Forbes, an American business media outlet, reported on the 1st that Musk set a record of owning $500 billion for the first time ever.

According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth surpassed $400 billion for the first time in December of last year and has now surpassed $500 billion in less than a year. Forbes reported that Tesla’s stock price rose about 4% that afternoon, increasing Musk’s net worth by about $9.3 billion (about 13 trillion won). Musk’s 12% stake in Tesla is now worth $191 billion (about 268 trillion won), Forbes explained.

Tesla’s stock price has risen for four consecutive days since the 26th of last month, closing at $459.46 that day. At one point during the trading session, it reached $462.29 (up 3.95%) but then pared back some of the gains to close at 3.31%. Tesla’s stock price has risen over 21% this year, more than doubling since early April, when it hit its lowest point of the year.

Musk is presenting a rosy future to investors by focusing on the development of robo-taxis, artificial intelligence (AI), and humanoid robots. Also, the abolition of the US federal government’s electric vehicle tax credit (subsidy) has cast some shadows on future electric vehicle sales, but Tesla’s third-quarter electric vehicle sales are estimated to have been strong as electric vehicle buyers flocked ahead of the benefit’s expiration at the end of September. In addition to Tesla, Musk owns approximately 42% of the space company SpaceX (worth $168 billion) and approximately 53% of the company, which is a merger of social media company X (formerly Twitter) and AI startup xAI (worth $60 billion).

Forbes predicted that if Musk maintains this pace, he could become the world’s first trillionaire by March 2033.

Even as federal government agencies entered a shutdown on the 1st, employees related to NASA’s “human moon landing” mission have been ordered to continue working, the US business media CNBC reported.

According to the report, NASA’s human resources chief sent an email that day to employees who were working on the moon landing mission in collaboration with private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin, asking them to continue working during the government shutdown.

Federal agency employees will be on unpaid leave during the shutdown, but NASA employees who have been notified to continue working this time will be able to receive pay for that work after the shutdown ends if they perform their work and record their hours worked, CNBC reported.

NASA officials said the agency will furlough approximately 15,000 employees during the shutdown and require approximately 3,000 employees to continue working full or partial hours. The employees ordered to work are related to the Artemis mission, the U.S.’s plan to land humans on the moon for the first time in half a century. SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, aims to land NASA astronauts on the lunar south pole in 2027 on the third phase of the Artemis mission, while Blue Origin, led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has won another Artemis contract to develop a lunar lander.

The fee for the H-1B visa, a “specialized worker visa,” will increase to $100,000, 100 times the current amount. According to a Bloomberg News report, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on the 19th outlining the changes to the H-1B visa program.H-1B visas are for skilled workers in fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and the number of visas issued annually is limited to 85,000 through a lottery system. The basic stay is three years, with extensions possible, and permanent residency can also be applied for.

President Trump believes that the issuance of H-1B visas is stealing American jobs. He claims that companies are using H-1B visas, which are heavily used by Chinese and Indian nationals, to bring in foreign workers at low costs, thereby eroding American jobs. Furthermore, internal White House documents obtained by Bloomberg diagnosed that the “abuse” of H-1B visas is a factor that discourages Americans from pursuing careers in STEM fields.

Accordingly, Bloomberg reported that President Trump plans to direct the Secretary of Labor to initiate the process of establishing regulations to revise the prevailing wage level for the H-1B program. In particular, he judged that the lottery system for H-1B visas has resulted in mass applications by staffing companies, and he plans to drastically increase the application fee from the current approximately $1,000 to $100,000.

In a July interview with the New York Times, Joseph Edlo, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, announced plans to revise the H-1B visa issuance system and strengthen screening.

Fears of a federal government shutdown are rapidly rising. This is because Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending bill on the 19th to prevent a government shutdown. The House of Representatives passed a short-term spending bill that would maintain federal spending at current levels for seven weeks, through November 21st, by a vote of 217 to 212.

The bill was created to avoid a shutdown amid significant disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over the federal government budget for fiscal year 2026 (October 2025 to September 2026).However, the bill, which passed the Republican-led House, was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 44 to 48.Republicans opposed the bill, including fiscal hawks like Rand Paul, who argued that it simply extended spending from the previous Biden administration, and Lisa Murkowski, who has expressed serious concerns about the Medicaid cuts signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

A Democratic alternative that included extending Obamacare subsidies while setting the shutdown deadline to October 31st was also voted on in the Senate, but it also failed. With the failure to pass a stopgap budget, the possibility of a federal government shutdown has grown even more likely. Congress entered a week-long recess that afternoon, and if the recess continues, there will be little time left to prevent a shutdown upon its return.

Democrats are pressuring Republicans to include a provision in the CR that extends Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire this year. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) countered that Republicans are refusing to negotiate despite needing Democratic votes to pass the CRC, and that any shutdown would be their responsibility.

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders have canceled votes scheduled for September 29th and 30th, ordering them not to return to Washington, D.C., until the budget deadline (September 30th).

The drought watch issued for New York state has been expanded to 50 counties.

Governor Kathy Hokule announced on the 10th that “as the drought continues, groundwater and river levels continue to remain below normal,” and that “drought watches will be issued for an additional 30 counties.”

New York State had already issued drought watches for 20 counties last month. This brings the total number of counties under drought watches in New York state to 50, including two Long Island counties, Nassau and Suffolk, as well as Orange, Rockland, and Dutchess counties. Last year, the five boroughs of New York City and Westchester County, which were under drought warnings at the same time, were removed from the drought watch list due to recent rain.

Governor Hokul urged residents in the drought watch areas to voluntarily conserve water, saying, “The drought that has persisted throughout the summer will continue into September. This is the time when water conservation is essential.”

New York State’s drought warnings are divided into four levels: “watch,” “warning,” “emergency,” and “disaster.” The first level, “watch,” does not require mandatory or mandatory water restrictions.

Amanda Lefton, Director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), added, “We hope that residents in the 50 counties under drought warnings will voluntarily conserve water by refraining from watering lawns, using washing machines, and shortening shower times.”

The New York State Attorney General’s Office is warning the public to be cautious after seeing a surge in cases of “phantom hackers,” a new type of financial scam targeting seniors’ retirement accounts. According to the New York State Attorney General, “phantom hacker” scams typically involve three stages: technical support, financial institutions, and federal government agencies.

The scammers first contact seniors, call them, and tell them that their online accounts linked to their computers have been hacked. They then send text messages or emails with contact information for customer support. If the victim contacts them, the scammer attempts to access the victim’s personal information by urging them to install a remote program to recover from hacking on their computer.

During the installation process, the scammer makes a separate phone call impersonating a financial institution or federal government agency to present a convincing case, recommending a secure transfer from the victim’s financial account to another bank or using cryptocurrency. Through this process, the scammer extorts money from the victim either once or repeatedly.

According to the State Prosecutor’s Office, the total damage caused by this method has reached $1 billion since 2024. The State Prosecutor’s Office has issued the following warnings to prevent related fraud: Do not click on online links received via text message or email; Never grant remote access to your computer to anyone you don’t know; and If someone contacts you about a problem with your bank account, do not respond and instead contact your financial institution.

President Donald Trump said that relations with South Korea will not worsen because of the arrest and detention of approximately 300 South Korean workers at a joint battery plant between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution in Georgia after being caught by U.S. immigration authorities during a raid. After returning to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C., following a visit to New York City to watch the men’s final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, Trump met with reporters on the 7th.

When asked if he thought relations between South Korea and the U.S. would be strained because of the incident, he replied, “No, we have a very good relationship with South Korea.”

Trump continued, “It’s a really good relationship. You know, we just signed a trade deal (with South Korea).”In particular, President Trump stated, “If this country doesn’t have people who know about batteries, we should help them bring some people here and train them to do the complex work, whether it’s battery manufacturing, computer manufacturing, or shipbuilding.”

He added, “So we’re going to look at this whole situation. We have a lot of industries that we don’t have anymore. We need to exchange people. The way we train people is by bringing in people who are skilled in those fields, having them stay for a period of time, and aiding.”

President Trump added, “We need to come up with a way to bring in experts and train our people so they (Americans) can do it themselves.”

President Trump’s remarks are interpreted as a declaration of intent to address the issue of the U.S. government failing to issue enough visas to Korean companies that have attracted significant investment but who are unable to work and work in the United States.

Accordingly, attention is focused on whether the visa issue, a long-standing complaint from Korean companies investing and advancing into the U.S., will be resolved.

President Trump stated, “I understand exactly what they (South Korea) said, and I will look into it.”In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, President Trump urged foreign companies investing in the United States to comply with U.S. immigration laws, while also promising to resolve the difficulties these companies face in sending their own personnel to the United States.

President Donald Trump was booed by the crowd while attending the US Open tennis final. According to Reuters and the New York Times (NYT) on the 7th, President Trump visited Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York to watch the US Open men’s singles final, scheduled for 2:00 PM that day. However, the match did not start on time.

General admission to the stadium was repeatedly delayed as the Secret Service installed metal detectors and checked bags in the waiting line for the president’s safety. Organizers initially announced that the final match between world No. 1 and No. 2 Yannick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz would begin 30 minutes later than scheduled but then announced another 15 minutes later. The match finally began at 2:48 p.m., but thousands of ticket holders were still unable to enter the stadium.

Spectators had to wait in line for at least 30 minutes to enter, and some waited for an hour and a half but were still unable to enter. As the match began, they booed outside, criticizing the delay caused by President Trump’s appearance. Even those who managed to enter the stadium booed when Trump’s image appeared on the scoreboard.

During his brief appearance on screen, Trump stood and greeted the crowd. The New York Times reported that some in the crowd cheered Trump’s appearance.