The number of Saudi students in the United States has reached 111,000 this year, up from 10,000 in 2007 while the number of Saudi students studying medicine in the States is over 600.

The Department of Commerce in the US said that international students have contributed to revive the US economy with $22.7 billion in 2011. "The number of Saudi students increased by 50 percent in 2011 alone," local media said.
Saudi students can go for higher studies abroad through enrolling in the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program that allows access to the best world universities to pursue disciplines which lead to bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees and medical fellowships.

The countries where Saudi students are sent to study are selected on the excellence of their educational programs and are subject to periodic reviews. Currently, students accepted in the program are sent to the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, New Zealand, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, the People's Republic of China, Malaysia, India and South Africa, according to the Ministry of Higher Education's website.

However, the most preferred destination for Saudi students is the US owing to the excellent academic programs in their universities. Accordingly, the Saudi government has raised the financial allocations of the education sector by 21 percent from the amount it had allocated in 2012. Education spending accounted for 25 percent of the Kingdom's public spending for the year 2013.

"The Saudi government is interested in sending its students to the best universities in the world. American universities represent a top priority for the Saudi government in spite of the high costs of living. In view of this, the Kingdom has allocated SR10 billion to send Saudi students to the US," Farooq Al-Kateeb, a former professor of economics at the King Abdul Aziz University and financial analyst told Arab News.

"Saudi students in the US play a big role in reviving the US universities which are currently facing a financial crisis.

In scenes reminiscent of medieval Europe, "plague villages" have appeared across Liberia as the West African nation faces the spreading Ebola epidemic. The World Health Organization is urging people leaving the disease-hit countries to get screened.

Liberia's remote villages, quarantined off from the outside world, appear to be the only hope for the crude containment of the deadly fever. However, very little food and few medical supplies are getting in, Reuters reports. This means the sick are left with a stark choice: either get out and risk inflicting suffering on others, or stay put and risk death there.

And that suffering has consequences in more ways than one: in Lofa County, one Joseph Gbembo, who survived the disease, is now struggling to raise 10 children under the ages of five, while also taking care of five widows, after nine members of his family succumbed to the illness.

Even the healthy in the communities are being torn apart by fear. Gbembo's neighbors will no longer speak with him, blaming him for bringing Ebola into his village, Boya. Worse still, he says, "I am lonely... nobody will talk to me and people run away from me." On top of this, he receives no food, healthcare or benefits for the children.

A Republican state representative in Iowa was arrested last week on a third-degree sexual abuse charge for having sex with his wife after a court told him that she lacked the mental capacity to consent, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reports.

According to the criminal complaint, on May 15, 2014, Representative Henry Rayhons (R) was told by officials at the Concord Care Center that his wife, Donna Rayhons, no longer possessed the mental capacity to consent to sexual relations.

A little more than a month later, Donna Rayhons' daughter, Suzan Brunes, was made her mother's temporary guardian after video surveillance captured Rayhons leaving his wife's room and discarding her underclothes in a nearby laundry hamper.

Appearing on Britain's Channel 4 News, recently out Christian singer Vicky Beeching slapped down patronizing attempts by an anti-LGBT activist to shame her over her sexual orientation.

The British-born Beeching, a popular Christian singer in both her home country and in the U.S., came out as gay this week in an interview with The Independent, stating, "I'm gay. God loves me just the way I am."

The 35-year-old singer said she has know she was gay since she was twelve, but kept it tucked away, saying that being raised as a Christian made her feel "embarrassed and ashamed" over her feeling towards women.

"I increasingly began to feel like I was living behind an invisible wall. The inner secrecy of holding that inside was divorcing me from reality - I was living in my own head, " she said. "Anybody I was in a friendship with, or anything I was doing in the church, was accompanied by an internal mantra: 'What if they knew?' It felt like all of my relationships were built on this ice that would break if I stepped out on to it."

Stating the her faith "is stronger now than it has ever been" since coming out, Beeching swatted away comments from homophobic anti-gay activist Scott Lively who asked her, "Don't you care what God thinks, Vicky?"

A mother who tried to bring meaning to her gay son's tragic suicide by having his organs donated was shocked to learn that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations prevent gay men from donating non-lifesaving organs, The Des Moines Register reports.

Sheryl Moore's 16-year-old son, A.J. Betts, took his own life after facing years of being bullied for being openly gay. She kept his body alive for four days after he was declared brain dead specifically so his oxygen-deprived organs could recuperate enough to be viable for transplants. His heart, lungs, and kidneys were all eventually harvested for transplantation, but his bone, tendons, heart valves, and eyes were not.

When she asked the Iowa Donor Network why those organs had not been harvested, she was told it was because of an FDA policy barring sexually active gay men from donating non-lifesaving organs.

A Tennessee police cadet shot and killed another man at his ex-girlfriend's house before the woman's brother shot and killed him. Cadet Michael William Little, of Knoxville, gunned down 28-year-old Travis Wegener at the home of Little's ex-girlfriend. Little also shot his ex-girlfriend and her mother, seriously wounding the older woman, shortly before 11:30 p.m. Friday.

Ashley Womack, 18, was treated and released from a hospital with a gunshot wound to her leg. Her mother, 47-year-old Rhonda Womack, was hospitalized in serious condition with a gunshot wound to her shoulder. Police said 22-year-old Joshua Womack grabbed a .22-caliber rifle to defend his family and killed Little during a shootout.

A central London branch of a major UK supermarket emptied its kosher food shelf after its manager feared anti-Israeli protesters outside would attack the store, the grocery giant has confirmed.

Meats, cheeses and sauces were removed and placed into cool storage at a Sainsbury's Local branch in Holborn as it was picketed by demonstrators calling on the grocer to boycott Israeli goods.

There followed uproar on social media as opponents of the move said many of the removed items were not actually from Israel. They also pointed out the distinction between Israeli exports and kosher dietary goods.

GIVES IN TO FEAR: UK supermarket, Sainsbury, REMOVES kosher food, fearing protesters http://t.co/6dGomqTCWv#tcotpic.twitter.com/17w3pejwU5
- slone (@slone) August 18, 2014

Despite the Sainsbury family's Jewish ancestry, the supermarket was accused of anti-Semitism for its actions. Sainsbury's insisted the decision was taken to protect the food from damage. However, one opponent made a formal complaint against the grocer.

After eight straight days of unrest in Ferguson, MO, following the shooting of 18 year-old Michael Brown, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has called the National Guard to attempt a restoration of peace in the city. However, the action will likely result in the opposite.

While protests have grown more violent since they started the night after Brown was shot, the number of injuries resulting from them is still relatively low. Protesters have been escalating their attacks though and the police's use of tear gas has become a daily headline. So far it appears only one to two people have been seriously injured from protest related incidents but it would seem that that number could be increasing very soon.

The state's first attempt to calm protesters was to remove the Ferguson Police Department's responsibility of containing the protests. Instead, the responsibility was given to the Missouri Highway Patrol and Capt. Ron Johnson. Because the police were the target of their protests and because Capt. Johnson is an African American; like 70% of Ferguson, many hoped only peaceful protests would continue.

I wasn't surprised at some of the crude comments and hatred expressed toward blacks that came from a few white male anti-immigration Republicans in response to my article Cops Gone Wild. A few were so choked with rage over a "f*** pinko-liberal-commie" who would take the side of a "black bully thief" over the police that they never read beyond the introductory comment about Ferguson. Criticizing police can ignite the same kind of hysterical hatred as criticizing the Israeli governments murders of Palestinians.

As readers know, I often emphasize that a significant percentage of the population is incapable of thought and rational response. They want to hear what they want to hear and go into a rage when they don't. They read not to learn but to have their ignorant biases substantiated.

Some European food producers have reportedly asked Switzerland to provide an alternative supply corridor for goods embargoed by Russia.

The agriculture import ban imposed by Russia does not apply to Switzerland as it is not an EU member.

During the past week various European food and agriculture organizations have asked the Swiss authorities if there is an opportunity to export their products to Russia via Switzerland, Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) spokeswoman, Anne Rizzoli told Izvestia.

She did not specify the companies "for security reasons."

The European Milk Board (EMB), a body that brings together different national associations of dairy product manufacturers, confirmed it was looking at transit countries.