Official statistics show a 2.4% drop in overseas visitors to America in February – the first full month of Donald Trump's second presidential term – compared with the same time last year.

Some experts have suggested that the US administration's hard-line approach to border security could have a "permanent chilling effect" on America's status as a "hub for both business travel and vacations", said The Independent.

Why have visitor numbers dropped?
Since Trump took office, there have been "stories of temporary visitors with innocuous itineraries being imprisoned for days or weeks", said the paper.

In one case, a German national with a valid visa-waiver entry permit was shackled at the Mexican border, interrogated and detained for 16 days before being flown back to Germany. And Welsh backpacker Becky Burke was detained for 19 days after being accused of violating the terms of her visa, before being removed to a deportation flight in leg chains and handcuffs.

These recent cases are "all the more striking" because they involve citizens of "countries long allied to the US", said The Guardian. Immigration officials had always "taken a more lenient stance" with visitors from allied nations – until now.

How have US visa rules changed?
Trump's executive order to focus on "foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats" requires the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to implement "enhanced vetting" for visa applicants, said the BBC. This means visas will need "extended processing time", and "visa appointments are likely to be delayed or suspended".

Who is especially at risk?
Nine European countries have advised their trans and non-binary citizens to seek advice from an American embassy before travelling to the US, if their passport does not reflect their birth sex.

The US administration is also considering a new travel ban that will target "the citizens of as many as 43 countries" and will be "broader" than the restrictions imposed during Trump's first term, said The New York Times. Citizens of the 11 "red list" countries, including Cuba and Venezuela, would be "flatly barred from entry" altogether, with "orange list" nationals only admitted for business travel.

Sunbeds might seem like a "relic" of the Noughties for some people, but Gen Z are surprisingly keen to top up their tans, said Emma Loffhagen in London's The Standard.

Last year, according to a survey by Melanoma Focus, 28% of UK adults used tanning salons, soaring to 43% of 18 to 24-year-olds. "Sunbeds, it seems, are back."

An 'explosion' of tanning salons
The UK's largest tanning chain, The Tanning Shop, has recorded "rapid growth" since 2018, increasing its outlets by almost 40%. Many of these salons promote sunbeds as a "safe" way to tan in a "controlled environment", while touting the potential "wellness" benefits of tanning, from stress relief to boosted vitamin D levels.

It's an interesting "rebrand", given that the World Health Organization classified indoor tanning as a class-one carcinogen in 2009, assigning it to the same category as tobacco and asbestos. Cancer Research UK stresses there is "no such thing as safe tanning from UV radiation", warning that people who start using sunbeds before the age of 35 have a 75% increased risk of malignant melanoma, the most deadly type of skin cancer.

Incidences of melanoma have increased about two-and-a-half times in the UK since the early 1990s, with about 17,500 new cases diagnosed each year.

A curious contradiction
So what's driving Gen Z's sunbed addiction? "Welcome to tanning TikTok", said Katie Rosseinsky in The Independent. In this "corner" of the app, young people are "proudly documenting their sunbed habit", and sharing "tips and tricks for maximising your tan". 

"It's a bizarre contradiction" for a generation so obsessed with painstaking skincare routines, said Hannah Skelley in The Times. Ironically, the same people who are investing heavily in "anti-ageing" cosmetics to keep wrinkles at bay are indulging in a habit that has been proven to accelerate premature skin-ageing.

The crucial lesson from all this is not to get "lured in" by the countless clips circulating on social media, and the growing body of "misinformation", said Amelia Bell in Elle. "And, if you are looking to boost your tan? Always opt for faux."

"Twitter: Breaking the Bird" gives a compelling account of how "wild-eyed Silicon Valley dreaming" can unfurl into "disturbing, ideological dogma", said Chris Bennion in The Telegraph.

The "riveting" documentary begins in the "halcyon days" of 2005, when a young "ragtag" gang gathered in a "crummy office" in San Francisco to try their hands at "inventing the future". Jack Dorsey, who went on to become Twitter's first CEO, came up with the idea for a site that would allow its users to microblog each other in real time, sharing their thoughts in short messages.

Twitter soon "exploded in popularity", said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, but the site was a "piece of rubbish". The film takes us back to the "fail whale years" when, every time the platform crashed (frequently), a whale would pop up on the screen "lifted by many, many little Twitter birds".

To begin with, Dorsey's "unwavering belief in free speech" seemed "justified". Twitter had, after all, been "instrumental" in facilitating the Black Lives Matter movement. But it wasn't long before hate speech "flooded" in, and Donald Trump's "vitriolic posts" started to legitimise other dangerous content. As the debate over free speech "raged", Dorsey resigned (he had already been sacked once before), and sold the "hellscape" to Elon Musk, who promptly rebranded it X.

At times, it's felt as if Musk "paid $44 billion for a mansion, then lit a fire in its basement", said Carol Midgley in The Times. But this "sprightly" documentary shows how things were "not exactly utopian" even before the tech billionaire took the reins.

J.D. Vance's free speech hypocrisy is a threat to Starmer – and the UK
Kate Maltby in The i Paper
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones", writes Kate Maltby. J.D. Vance has amplified "far-right misrepresentations" of free speech in the UK, even as the US administration "clamps down in brutal ways on people whose speech" it doesn't like. "The threat is clear: conform to an American vision of the legitimate public square, or we nuke your economy." Keir Starmer "should have the guts" to "call this out as unacceptable treatment of an ally".

Are we all just winging it, all the time?
Christian May at City A.M.
We like to think that adults are in charge, writes Christian May, but "is this really the case"? Read about Brexit or Birmingham's "rat-infested streets" and tell me that those in charge "know what they're doing". It's no surprise, therefore, to discover that the Office for National Statistics is "making a hash" of data collection. We should "demand" it makes efforts to "review, learn" and "improve" with "candour and transparency".

Ed Davey's Lib Dems need to grow up
Nick Tyrone in The Spectator
The Liberal Democrats launched their local election campaign yesterday with Ed Davey on a hobbyhorse, "jumping about on a toy horseracing track", writes Nick Tyrone. These stunts are "old hat" and "increasingly difficult to watch" because of "the seriousness of everything that is happening in the world right now". But "Davey doing inane things" will "dominate the airwaves" until the Conservatives "decide they are serious about politics again".