A new travel ban by President Donald Trump could bar people from Afghanistan and Pakistan from entering the U.S. as soon as next week based on a government review of countries' security and vetting risks, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The three sources, who requested anonymity, said other countries could also be on the list but did not know which ones.

A lawmaker in California is hoping to overturn the state's ban on government funding for travel to states with laws they find discriminatory.

Since 2016, California has been steadily adding to its list of U.S. destinations barred from state-funded travel. The practice began in retaliation to North Carolina enacting a law requiring people to use the bathrooms that corresponded with their biological sex.

State Sen. Toni Atkins is seeking to overturn the prohibition, saying that the cumbersome regulations should be replaced with a marketing campaign promoting inclusion.

The way to stop Russia from annexing any more of Ukraine’s territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, is for Western countries to announce that they would ban all Russian citizens in response.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zelensky said that “the most important sanctions are to close the borders — because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land.” He said Russians should “live in their own world until they change their philosophy.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging Western governments to bar Russians from entering their countries — declaring that they ought to “live in their own world until they change their philosophy.”

The leader of the besieged country made the request in an interview on Monday with the Washington Post as the Pentagon announced another $1 billion aid package to Ukraine.

Zelensky told the newspaper that “the most important sanctions are to close the borders — because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land.”

Ukraine’s president called on the West to impose a blanket travel ban on Russians, an idea that has found support among some European states but angered Moscow, which pressed on with a fierce military offensive in eastern Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s idea looked likely to divide the European Union, where differences on how to deal with Moscow have long persisted between some eastern and western members.

By the time President Biden was briefed on the emergence of a fast-moving new Covid variant on the morning after Thanksgiving, he had a choice to make — and little information to base it on.

In a secure conference call from a vacation compound overlooking Nantucket Harbor, the president listened as his health advisers told him that the highly mutated virus was far more concerning than other variants they had seen in recent months. It spread twice as fast as the dominant Delta variant and had the potential to evade treatments and vaccines.

South Africa said Saturday it's being "punished" for detecting the new Omicron coronavirus variant as more countries rush to enact travel bans and restrictions.

Driving the news: The U.S. imposed air travel restrictions from eight countries Friday in response to the Omicron variant. Countries in Europe and Asia have also implemented their own travel restrictions in response to Omicron.

As the United States and European countries close their borders over fears over the recently detected coronavirus variant, many South Africans say they feel as if they are being “punished” for alerting global health authorities.

Hours after South African scientists announced the existence of a new variant that they said displayed “a big jump in evolution,” Britain banned travelers from southern African nations. Other European nations and the United States quickly followed suit.

South Africa today said it should be 'applauded not punished' for detecting the super mutant Omicron Covid variant. 

The strain makes vaccines at least 40 per cent less effective against transmission than they are against Delta, according to experts, but scientists believe jabs still prevent it causing severe disease and hospitalisations. 

Britain, the US and EU all banned flights from southern Africa coming into their countries yesterday after the discovery of the strain, which originated in the region.

On 8 November, the US-Canadian border will open both ways to non-essential travel for the first time in 19 months. The closure has kept thousands of bi-national families split throughout the pandemic.

In March 2020, Jaslyn Declercq and her partner, Thomas Musgraves, began to plan their wedding.

The relationship had been a long-distance whirlwind after the pair met in an online chat room in 2017.