Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

Wait, what is Stephen A. Smith talking about? Find out with our quiz.

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Ask Amy: Should I be the best man if I think the bride is abusive?

Carolyn Hax: Husband keeps pushing modest spouse to wear sexier clothes

Miss Manners: Host eats luxurious breakfast, leaves cereal for guest

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

Nationals can’t solve Nate Eovaldi, drop series finale to Rangers

Journalism in India is under assault

The dangerous new call for regime change in Beijing

Ukrainian men abroad voice anger over pressure to return home to fight 

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

Taxes are inevitable. Paying to prepare them doesn’t have to be.

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Biden honors distinguished Americans; Trump back in N.Y. court

Hope Hicks witnessed nearly every Trump scandal. Now she must testify.

State laws measure if a woman is close enough to death for an abortion

Israel’s offensive is destroying Gaza’s ability to grow its own food

Riot police and over 2,000 arrests: A look at 2 weeks of campus protests

‘It’s been abused’ Rep. McCaul on motion to vacate threat

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts

A Chinese college student was sentenced to nine months in federal prison Wednesday for stalking and harassing a former fellow student who had shared pro-democracy fliers around campus.

<a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/former-berklee-college-music-student-sentenced-prison-threatening-individual-promoting" target="_blank">According to prosecutors</a>, Xiaolei Wu, 26, targeted his female victim — who was identified in court documents only as Zooey — after she posted fliers calling for solidarity with pro-democracy activists in China around the Berklee College of Music’s campus in Boston.

After seeing the posters, Wu threatened to “chop [his victim’s] hands off” if she continued to put them up around the campus where both had studied. According to prosecutors, he also provided her details to his mother, a Chinese government official.

In a message shared with the court, Wu told his victim that her family in China should expect a visit from state security agents, whom he said he had informed about her actions, warning her that she would be detained by border officials if she were to return to the country.

The pro-democracy posters included the slogans: “We want freedom … We want democracy … Stand with Chinese people,” according to a photograph shared by the victim on her Instagram account in October 2022. Prosecutors said she was originally from China but is now a permanent U.S. resident.

According to prosecuting attorneys, Wu embarked on a targeted campaign of harassment across email and social media after seeing the fliers in question. “I already called the tip-off line,” Wu said in a message: “The public security agency will go greet your family.” In an email sent to the victim days later, he wrote: “I hope your family is having a good time being greeted. Be ‘safe.’”

The victim’s family in China was subjected to “repeated visits” by government officials as a result of the case, prosecutors told the court, and she no longer feels like she can safely return to China.

After <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/peoples-republic-china-citizen-arrested-stalking" target=_blank>his arrest in December 2022</a>, a federal jury convicted Wu in January — he was living in the United States on a student visa — of one count of cyberstalking and one count of interstate transmission of threatening communication.

Wu will spend three years of supervised release after the completion of his nine-month sentence, according to Wednesday’s statement from the Justice Department.

“Mr. Wu’s criminal conduct is very serious,” acting U.S. attorney Joshua S. Levy said in a statement. “He harnessed the fear of potential retribution from the [People’s Republic of China] government to harass and threaten an innocent individual who had posted an innocuous, pro-democracy flier on the Berklee campus.”

FBI Special Agent Jodi Cohen praised the bravery of Wu’s victim in coming forward. “What Mr. Wu did — in weaponizing the authoritarian nature of the People’s Republic of China to threaten this woman — is incredibly disturbing,” she said.

In a statement shared with The Washington Post Thursday, Michael Tumposky, a lawyer representing Wu, emphasized that the sentence handed out by the judge was shorter than what prosecutors had requested. “In sentencing Mr. Wu to 9 months in prison, the judge rejected the entire premise of the Government’s case — that he somehow represented a national security threat,” Tumposky wrote.

“Instead, she seemed to recognize the case for what it was: two days of irresponsible online language by an otherwise upstanding young man who ceased all contact as soon as he was told by the police to knock it off.”

In an earlier memorandum, Wu’s attorneys said he acknowledged his behavior had been reactive, impulsive and immature. They said their client’s actions reflected a collision of two cultures: “His own highly sheltered upbringing in Communist China, and the democratic norms of the United States, many of which were still relatively new to him at the time of his offense.” According to his lawyers, Wu will be deported by immigration officials after his case is over and will not be permitted to reenter the United States.

Since 2019, the number of Chinese students visiting the United States has declined by more than 20 percent, according to State Department figures — with numbers failing to recover from an immediate slump triggered by the pandemic.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/14/china-united-states-university-students-border/" target=_blank>Part of the decline is due to Beijing’s crackdown on groups supporting the exchanges</a>, but Chinese students and academics have also been subjected to increased scrutiny at the U.S. border. In 2020, the<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-visas-china-communist-trump/2020/12/03/bf6694ea-3551-11eb-9699-00d311f13d2d_story.html" target=_blank> Trump administration tightened visa regulations for Chinese Communist Party members</a>, who number around 92 million, as well as their close relatives — limiting their U.S. visas to a single-entry, one-month stay.

Cambridge University (Trinity College), BA and MPhil in History

Leo Sands is a breaking-news reporter and editor in The Washington Post’s London Hub, covering news as it unfolds around the world. 

Leo Sands

washpost

Chinese student jailed for stalking, harassment over pro-democracy posters

the-washington-post

FILE PHOTO: Xiaolei Wu sits for an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation

via REUTERS

Climate

Education

Health

Innovations

Investigations

National Security

Obituaries

Science

National

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/national&limit=20

The Washington Post's national news coverage. Get the latest national news, featuring national security, science and the courts. Read breaking national news headlines from across the U.S.

prism://prism.query/two-sites,/education,/local/education&limit=20

prism://prism.query/site,/world/asia-pacific&limit=20

Asia

The Washington Post provides the latest information and analysis of breaking Asia news stories. Includes news coverage on China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Cambodia.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/world/&limit=20

World

The Washington Post World section provides information and analysis of breaking world news stories. In addition to our world news and video, Post World News offers discussions and blogs on major international news and economic issues.