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Monthly Archives: September 2026

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16 Sep 2026
Canada Express Entry draw

Canada Express Entry Draw Sends 2,000 Invitations at CRS 519

Categories Canada, Immigration

Canada issued 2,000 invitations to apply for permanent residence in a Canada Express Entry draw held on 15 September 2026, with the Comprehensive Ranking System cut-off for the Canadian Experience Class settling at 519 points — two below the round two weeks earlier.

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The 15 September round

The round was category-restricted to the Canadian Experience Class, the stream for candidates who already hold skilled work experience in Canada. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada issued 2,000 invitations, with the department’s own timestamp recorded at 10:21:41 UTC.

The tie-breaking rule did significant work in this draw. Where multiple profiles sit exactly on the cut-off, IRCC admits those submitted before a stated date and time. That timestamp reached back to 26 March 2026 — close to six months before the round itself, which indicates a deep pool of profiles clustered at 519.

Specialist trackers including Moving2Canada and Canadian immigration practices reported the same figures independently. IRCC publishes each round on its ministerial instructions page, which is the authoritative record.

Where the CRS line is heading

The Canadian Experience Class threshold peaked at 523 in the 18 August round, the highest of the year. The 1 September round came in at 521, and 15 September at 519. That is a downward drift of four points over a month.

Read carefully, it is a mild trend rather than a door opening. Single rounds are noisy: invitation volume, the mix of categories drawn and the size of the pool all move the line. A candidate sitting at 510 should not read a four-point drift as a forecast. A candidate at 517 or 518 has reason to keep the profile current.

A record year for invitations

Volume, not the threshold, is the more striking number this year. As of the 4 September round, trackers counted 53 Express Entry rounds in 2026 and more than 126,000 invitations issued — a record annual total, with almost four months of the year still to run.

That combination — record invitation volume alongside historically high cut-off scores — tells you the pool has grown faster than the draws. More candidates are competing for a larger number of places, which is why the threshold has held up despite the issuance rate.

How the levels plan shapes the draws

Express Entry rounds are downstream of the Immigration Levels Plan. Canada’s 2026-2028 plan, summarised by practitioners tracking the file, sets a target of 380,000 new permanent residents in 2026, held flat for the following two years.

Within that, the plan allocates 109,000 places to skilled workers in 2026, rising to 111,000 in 2027 and 2028. The plan brings back the Federal High Skilled category, leans harder on the Provincial Nominee Program, and keeps a deliberate focus on helping people already in Canada transition to permanent residence — which is precisely why Canadian Experience Class rounds keep appearing.

The money side of the system also tightened this year. Our report on the revised study permit proof-of-funds requirement covers the change most likely to affect candidates building Canadian experience through study.

Planning around the next round

IRCC does not publish a draw calendar in advance, and the interval between rounds has varied. Candidates within a few points of the line should do three things: confirm language test validity, since expiry silently drops a profile’s score; update work experience the day it crosses a year boundary; and keep an eye on provincial nominations, which the levels plan has made a larger share of the intake.

For comparison across destinations, our coverage of Australia’s visa processing priorities and of green card category retrogression in the United States sets out how the other two large skilled-migration systems are rationing places this year.

Express Entry questions answered

What was the CRS cut-off in the 15 September Express Entry draw?

The Canadian Experience Class round on 15 September 2026 used a Comprehensive Ranking System cut-off of 519 points.

How many candidates were invited?

IRCC issued 2,000 invitations to apply, the same volume as the 1 September round.

What is a tie-breaking timestamp?

Where several profiles sit on the cut-off score, the department admits those submitted before a stated date and time. For this round the timestamp reached back to 26 March 2026.

Is the CRS threshold falling?

The trend has been gently downward since the 18 August round set the year’s high of 523 for the Canadian Experience Class, but two points is a small move and single rounds are noisy.

How many invitations has Canada issued in 2026?

Trackers counted more than 126,000 invitations across 53 rounds as of the 4 September draw, a record annual total.

What does the 2026-2028 levels plan target?

The plan sets 380,000 new permanent residents in 2026 and holds that level for the following two years, with 109,000 places for skilled workers in 2026 and 111,000 in each of 2027 and 2028.

More immigration reporting

16 Sep 2026
birth tourism rule blocked

A Judge Just Stopped Trump’s Birth Tourism Crackdown

Categories World

A federal judge halted the Trump administration’s effort to end so-called birth tourism on September 14, 2026. The judge ruled the policy is almost certainly unconstitutional and cannot take effect while the case proceeds.

The birth tourism rule blocked decision covers Executive Order 14419, signed August 6, 2026. It would have let immigration officials deny visas or block entry for people believed to be visiting the US to give birth. It also allowed revoking travel authorization already granted.

What Executive Order 14419 tried to do

Under the order, the State Department and Department of Homeland Security would have gained new authority. Acting through USCIS, Customs and Border Protection and ICE, they could treat suspected birth tourism as grounds to deny or revoke a visa.

The administration framed the order as closing a loophole. It says the loophole has been used to secure automatic US citizenship for children born to visiting foreign nationals.

birth tourism rule blocked

Why the court blocked it

The federal judge issued a preliminary injunction after immigrant rights advocates challenged the rule. She found it likely conflicts with settled constitutional protections for children born on US soil.

A preliminary injunction pauses a rule while litigation continues. It doesn’t strike the rule down permanently, so the case will keep moving through the courts even though the rule can’t be enforced for now.

How this fits a pattern of blocked immigration rules

This isn’t the only Trump administration immigration rule paused by a federal court this month. A separate September 14 ruling also blocked a change to the Duration of Status system for international students and exchange visitors.

Together, the rulings suggest courts are moving quickly to pause major immigration policy changes issued through executive action, before they can affect travelers or families.

What legal experts are watching next

Immigration attorneys say the constitutional question here is well-settled. Existing Supreme Court precedent holds that children born on US soil are citizens at birth, regardless of their parents’ travel intentions. That’s part of why the judge moved so quickly.

That doesn’t guarantee the outcome on appeal. But it means the administration faces a high bar to get a higher court to let the rule take effect while the case continues.

What happens next in the birth tourism rule blocked case

The administration is expected to appeal the injunction. That process could take months and may eventually reach a higher court, given the constitutional questions involved.

Until the litigation resolves, current rules on visa issuance and entry for pregnant travelers stay unchanged. Families shouldn’t expect the blocked policy to affect travel plans in the near term.

How this affects visa applicants right now

Consular officers are processing visa applications under the standard rules that predate the blocked order, with no new birth-tourism screening questions in effect.

Applicants who were previously worried about extra scrutiny under the new policy can proceed with their applications as normal. Attorneys still advise keeping an eye on the case as it moves through appeal.

Frequently asked questions

What is Executive Order 14419?

It’s an August 6, 2026 executive order titled ‘Ending Birth Tourism’ that would let US immigration officials deny or revoke visas for foreign nationals believed to be traveling to the US to give birth.

Why was the birth tourism rule blocked?

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on September 14, 2026, finding the rule likely unconstitutional and pausing it while a legal challenge from immigrant rights advocates proceeds.

Is the birth tourism rule permanently struck down?

No. A preliminary injunction is a temporary pause while the underlying lawsuit continues; the case could still go through further appeals.

Does this affect current visa applicants?

For now, current rules on visa issuance for pregnant travelers remain unchanged, since the blocked rule cannot be enforced while the injunction is in effect.

Are other immigration rules facing similar court challenges?

Yes. A separate September 14 ruling also blocked a change to the Duration of Status system affecting international students, part of a broader pattern of court challenges to recent immigration rules.

Related coverage on Tamara News

Sources

16 Sep 2026
EU AI Act high-risk deadline

EU AI Act High-Risk Deadline Moves to December 2027

Categories EU, Tech

The EU AI Act high-risk deadline that was due to bite on 2 August 2026 has moved to 2 December 2027 for standalone systems, and to 2 August 2028 for AI built into products already governed by EU product-safety law. The shift came through Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the Digital Omnibus package amending the AI Act, which entered into force on 27 July 2026.

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What moved, and to when

The Digital Omnibus was tracked through the European Parliament as a simplification measure and published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026. Its effect on timing is narrow but consequential.

Annex III covers standalone high-risk systems — the categories such as biometrics, critical infrastructure, education, employment, essential services, law enforcement and administration of justice. Compliance for those moves from 2 August 2026 to 2 December 2027. Annex I covers AI embedded in products already regulated under EU product-safety legislation, and that moves to 2 August 2028.

The obligations themselves are unchanged in substance: risk management, data governance, technical documentation, record-keeping, human oversight, accuracy and robustness, cybersecurity, conformity assessment, post-market monitoring and incident reporting. Only the date on which they become enforceable has moved.

What did not move

This is where several summaries have gone wrong. Three tranches stayed on their original schedule.

Article 5 prohibited practices — the outright bans, including certain biometric categorisation and social scoring — have been in force since February 2025. General-purpose AI provider obligations have applied since August 2025. And Article 50 transparency duties, including the labelling of AI-generated content and disclosure when users are interacting with an AI system, took effect on 2 August 2026 as originally written.

So a provider of a large model selling into the EU gained nothing from the omnibus. A provider of, say, a CV-screening tool gained sixteen months.

The AI Office now has teeth

The other thing that happened on 2 August 2026 is that the European AI Office’s supervision and enforcement powers became exercisable. Analyses from firms advising on the file, including Gibson Dunn, set out the scope: the Office can request information from providers, demand access to models, order mitigation measures, and require withdrawal or recall from the EU market.

Those are enforcement powers attached to obligations that are already live, chiefly the general-purpose AI and transparency provisions. The practical exposure for frontier model developers is therefore now, not December 2027.

The reason given

The justification offered for the deferral is capacity rather than policy reversal: harmonised standards under the Act were not finalised, and notified body capacity to run conformity assessments was not in place. Without a standard to build against and an assessor to certify against it, providers could not have demonstrated compliance on the original date.

Critics read the same facts differently, as evidence that the Act’s conformity architecture was over-specified relative to what European standards bodies could deliver. Both readings are consistent with the text; the Commission’s own framing is the capacity one.

The deferral also lands in a year of hardening technology policy elsewhere. Our coverage of the US chip export bills and of China’s intelligent computing plan to 2030 traces the parallel tracks.

What providers should do with the extra time

The obvious risk of a sixteen-month deferral is that teams stand down. The obligations that arrive in December 2027 are documentation-heavy and retrospective — technical files, data governance records and post-market monitoring plans are easier to build while a system is being developed than to reconstruct afterwards.

Two near-term items remain unavoidable. Transparency labelling is live now for anyone shipping generative output into the EU. And for organisations that also build or deploy general-purpose models, the AI Office’s information-gathering powers are exercisable today. Our report on Microsoft’s AI code of conduct shows how large vendors are documenting these commitments ahead of formal requirements.

What people are asking about the delay

What is the new EU AI Act high-risk deadline?

Compliance for standalone high-risk systems listed in Annex III now falls due on 2 December 2027, moved from 2 August 2026. AI embedded in products already covered by EU product-safety law has until 2 August 2028.

Which obligations were not delayed?

Article 50 transparency and AI-content labelling duties, the general-purpose AI provider obligations in force since August 2025, and the Article 5 prohibited-practices regime in force since February 2025.

What changed on 2 August 2026?

The AI Office’s supervision and enforcement powers became exercisable, alongside the transparency obligations and the penalty framework for the provisions already in force.

Why did the EU postpone the high-risk rules?

The stated reason is that harmonised standards and notified body capacity were not ready in time for providers to demonstrate conformity.

Where is this written down?

Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the Digital Omnibus simplification package amending the AI Act, published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and in force from 27 July 2026.

Does the delay apply outside the EU?

The AI Act applies to providers placing systems on the EU market regardless of where they are established, so the revised dates matter to non-EU developers selling into Europe.

Further technology coverage

16 Sep 2026
Perplexity Windows AI agent

Perplexity’s New AI Agent Wants to Run Your PC For You

Categories Tech

Perplexity has brought its computer-operating AI agent to Windows. PC owners with high-end Nvidia graphics cards can now use a tool that carries out multi-step tasks, not just answers questions.

The Perplexity Windows AI agent rollout targets a specific slice of the Windows market. It requires an Nvidia GeForce RTX or RTX PRO GPU with at least 24GB of VRAM, hardware typically found in gaming and workstation PCs rather than everyday laptops.

What the agent can actually do

Rather than answering a query in a chat window, the agent operates applications on the user’s behalf. It follows instructions across multiple steps, the way a human would click through a task.

That sets it apart from Perplexity’s existing search product. It sits closer to the emerging category of ‘computer use’ AI agents that other labs have also raced to ship.

Perplexity Windows AI agent

Why the hardware requirement matters

Running an AI agent that can see and act on a screen in real time takes far more processing power than a text-based chatbot. That’s why Perplexity restricted the initial release to GPUs with substantial video memory.

That requirement limits early access to gamers, enthusiasts and professionals who already own high-end Nvidia hardware, rather than the broader Windows user base.

How this fits the wider AI agent race

Perplexity’s move follows a broader industry push toward agents that operate software directly. Several major AI labs have targeted this as the next step beyond conversational chatbots.

Apple separately opened a public beta of a rebuilt Siri, built with Google’s Gemini models, this same week. That shows how fast big tech companies are racing to ship agent-like AI features.

What happens next for the Perplexity Windows AI agent

Broader hardware support, including GPUs with less video memory, would signal that Perplexity wants to push past its current enthusiast audience.

Anyone considering the tool should weigh that it requires trusting an AI system to take real actions on their PC. That’s a step up in risk from a chatbot that only returns text.

Why Nvidia’s hardware sits at the center of this

The 24GB VRAM requirement shows how demanding these new agent tools are on graphics hardware. They often need to process screen content and run local AI models at the same time, rather than sending everything to a remote server.

That makes Nvidia’s high-end GPU lineup a gatekeeper for this new category of software. Earlier PC gaming features followed a similar pattern before becoming widely available.

Who should try it first

Owners of gaming or workstation PCs with the required Nvidia hardware are the natural early adopters. That’s especially true for anyone already comfortable granting an app broad background permissions.

Everyday laptop owners without a discrete high-end GPU will need to wait. A lighter version of the tool, if Perplexity builds one, could bring it to typical consumer hardware.

Frequently asked questions

What is Perplexity’s new Windows AI agent?

It’s an AI tool that can operate applications and carry out multi-step tasks on a Windows PC, rather than only answering questions in a chat window.

What hardware do I need to use it?

The agent currently requires an Nvidia GeForce RTX or RTX PRO graphics card with at least 24GB of VRAM, which limits it to higher-end gaming and workstation PCs.

How is this different from Perplexity’s search product?

Perplexity’s search tool answers questions using web content; this agent is designed to act on a user’s behalf inside applications, following multi-step instructions.

Are other companies building similar AI agents?

Yes. Several major AI labs and tech companies, including Apple with its rebuilt Siri, are racing to ship agents that can operate software directly rather than just chat.

Is there a risk to letting an AI agent control my PC?

Any tool that can take real actions on your computer carries more risk than a text-only chatbot, so users should understand what permissions they are granting before enabling it.

Related coverage on Tamara News

Sources

16 Sep 2026
Global State of Democracy report

Global State of Democracy Report Puts US at 50-Year Low

Categories World

The United States has recorded its lowest level of democratic performance in the 50 years the measure has existed, according to the Global State of Democracy report published this week by International IDEA. The finding sits inside a wider pattern the intergovernmental body describes as broad-based democratic decline across its 174-country index.

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The headline finding

International IDEA’s annual assessment, reported on 15 September, places US democratic performance at its lowest point since measurement began in 1975. Seema Shah, who heads the organisation’s democracy assessment team, told NPR that among countries in decline, “the clearest example, unfortunately, is the United States”.

The report’s own language on 2025 is direct. It says President Donald Trump “quickly amassed power in the executive branch and wielded it to further a narrow set of personal goals and pursue retaliation against perceived enemies”, and that the results have been far-reaching, “undermining the rule of law domestically and internationally and testing long-standing alliances and multilateral cooperation”.

That is International IDEA’s characterisation, not a neutral finding of fact, and it is worth naming as such. The organisation is an intergovernmental body with an explicit democracy-promotion mandate, and its index reflects a particular definition of democratic performance.

What the index actually measures

The Global State of Democracy indices cover 174 countries with data running back to 1975, which is what allows the 50-year comparison. This edition assesses changes between 2020 and 2025, so it captures a five-year window rather than a single year’s events.

The measure is composite. It aggregates indicators grouped around representation, rights, rule of law and participation, each built from expert assessments and observable data. A country’s score can fall without any constitutional change, because the index is tracking practice rather than statute — how elections run, whether parliaments function, what happens to journalists.

The global picture

Researchers observed the same pattern across many countries: severe drops in the scores measuring freedom of expression, freedom of the press, credible elections and effective parliament. Those four are the components most sensitive to executive pressure, which is why they tend to move together.

The reporting period covers a stretch in which several established democracies held contested elections under strain. Sweden’s recent vote, which we covered in our report on the 2026 result, is one of the tests of whether European systems absorb polarisation without institutional damage. The parallel story on the other side of the ledger is the consolidation of alternative multilateral blocs, set out in the BRICS New Delhi declaration.

How to read the claim

Three qualifications belong with the headline. First, “lowest in 50 years” is a statement about a specific index, not a universal ranking; other democracy measures use different indicators and produce different orderings. Second, the window ends in 2025, so it does not capture events in 2026. Third, a decline in performance score is not the same as a regime classification change, and International IDEA does not claim otherwise.

None of that makes the finding trivial. The value of a 50-year series is precisely that it can distinguish a bad year from a trend, and the report’s argument is that the recent movement is a trend.

Where this goes from here

The report lands days before the UN General Assembly’s high-level week, where the 81st session convenes under a theme built around restoring trust in multilateral institutions. Expect the findings to be cited in that debate, and contested in it.

The more consequential question is domestic. Indices of this kind influence risk assessments, development funding decisions and the framing used by opposition parties and civil society groups. Whether the US figure moves in the next edition will depend on the same four components that fell this time — press freedom, expression, electoral credibility and parliamentary effectiveness.

Questions readers are asking

Who publishes the Global State of Democracy report?

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, known as International IDEA, an intergovernmental organisation that produces the annual index.

How many countries does the index cover?

The report tracks democratic performance across 174 countries, drawing on data going back to 1975.

What period does the 2026 edition assess?

This edition focuses on changes in democratic performance between 2020 and 2025.

Which measures fell most sharply?

Researchers recorded severe drops in scores for freedom of expression, freedom of the press, credible elections and effective parliament.

Is the United States the only country in decline?

No. International IDEA describes a broad global pattern of decline; it singles out the United States as the clearest example rather than the only one.

Does a low score mean a country is no longer a democracy?

No. The index measures performance on a set of indicators over time. A fall in score signals deterioration on those measures, not a formal change of system.

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