From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting.

President Trump's blueprint for improving or reforming America's immigration system is drawing fire from advocacy groups at both ends of the ideological spectrum.

The plan would provide a 10-12 year path to citizenship for DACA-eligible immigrants. It will give preference to immigrants with skills needed in the American economy and end a "visa lottery" that gives people across the world a chance to come legally to the United States. It would also seek to increase border security by erecting a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, the president called his blueprint "a down-the-middle compromise," but it remains a lightning rod in Congress, which has until February 8 to arrive at a bipartisan agreement on immigration and federal funding or risk another partial shutdown of the federal government.

Rights groups are also criticizing President Trump's decision to keep the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba open.

Trump said during his campaign he wanted to keep the prison open and "load it up with some bad dudes."

Noor Zafar with the Center for Constitutional Rights has helped represent Guantanamo detainees in federal court. She told VOA that Trump's order was "making good on his campaign promises."

She said, "This is a piece of his broader anti-Muslim, Islamophobic rhetoric that he's used to rile up his base."

She said she would like to see the base shut down and the detainees either charged or released, and she said the president's notion of who is designated a terrorist is based on a person's religion or ethnicity.

This is VOA news.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that Britain and China have agreed on a joint trade and investment review.

"... we have that freedom outside membership of the European Union of being [to] able to organize those arrangements for ourselves on a bilateral, on a bilateral basis."

May spoke at the start of a visit to China that's focused on coming to a new trade agreement once Britain leaves the European Union.

She began her three-day trip in the central industrial city of Wuhan before heading to Beijing for talks with the premier. She will then meet with President Xi Jinping on Thursday before wrapping up her visit in the financial hub, Shanghai.

The multinational joint task force fighting Boko Haram continues to free hostages from the terrorists' stronghold. But the struggles of the newly liberated area are far from over.

Correspondent Moki Edwin Kindzeka reports from Zamai in northern Cameroon.

The number of men, women and children abducted by Boko Haram during the terror group's eight-year insurgency is not known but is believed to be well into the thousands. Men and boys report having been conscripted to fight or serve as porters while women and girls report forced marriages and slave labor in the terrorist camps.

Boko Haram has been fighting to establish a strict Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

A regional military offensive since 2015 has retaken much of the territory Boko Haram once controlled.

Rescued hostages have presented a challenge. Communities in Cameroon have been weary of them, in particular amid a surge in suicide bombings along the border in the past year.

There are also fears more returnees mean more mouths to feed, straining already overstressed resources.

Moki Edwin Kindzeka, for VOA news, Zamai, northern Cameroon.

The United States says it is not aware of any specific threats to the Winter Olympics in South Korea next month despite nuclear tensions with neighboring North Korea.

Senior State Department officials in charge of security for the U.S. Olympic team spoke to reporters on Wednesday. They said they have been working closely with South Korea for two years to prepare for the 2018 Winter Games that begin with an opening ceremony February 9 in the town of Pyeongchang.

An assistant secretary for diplomatic security says his team is well aware of the nuclear tensions with the North.

You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting from the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.