USAID

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USAID Shutdown Efforts Are &#39;Chaotic,&#39; &#39;Tectonic&#39;
USAID Shutdown Efforts
Are 'Chaotic,' 'Tectonic'
THE RUNDOWN
Feb 7, 2025 9:19 AM CST

USAID Shutdown Efforts Are 'Chaotic,' 'Tectonic'

US farmers to lose out on sales; patients stranded with devices, experimental drugs in their bodies

(Newser) - The Trump administration is intent on dismantling the US Agency for International Development, which delivers food, medicine, and other humanitarian aid to the world's poorest. The stop-work order on USAID, which is now under the purview of Marco Rubio's State Department, immediately halted the agency's disbursement of...

Rubio Plans to Take USAID From 10K Positions to 290

A few programs are spared for now, though employees say they can't get to funding

(Newser) - The Trump administration told the remaining senior officials of the US Agency for International Development on Thursday that all but 290 of its more than 10,000 positions will be cut. The employees who are left would administer the few life-saving programs that the administration said will remain in place...

Kristof: What's Unfolding at USAID Is 'Sickening'

New York Times columnist says the world's richest are hurting the world's poorest

(Newser) - The headline of Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column on what's happening to USAID crystallizes the issue in his view: "The World's Richest Men Take On the World's Poorest Children." Elon Musk has been gloating about gutting the US Agency for International Aid Development,...

Musk's DOGE Gains Access to Medicare System

'This is where the big money fraud is happening,' he says of work at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

(Newser) - Elon Musk's access to the operations of the federal government appears to be only accelerating. On the heels of his Department of Government Efficiency gaining access —though it may be only "read-only" access —to a sensitive Treasury Department payment system:
  • Medicare/Medicaid: Representatives from DOGE have gotten
...

White House Is Canceling Politico Subscriptions

It all comes back to a conspiracy theory

(Newser) - A right-wing conspiracy theory that started spreading Wednesday claims that USAID, the federal agency in the crosshairs of Elon Musk and his DOGE staffers , has for years funneled millions of dollars to Politico and the AP. At a press conference that day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned the...

Trump Will Place Almost All USAID Staff on Leave

Nearly all workers will be pulled off the job and out of the field, across the globe

(Newser) - As expected, the Trump administration announced Tuesday night that almost all USAID employees will be placed on administrative leave Friday night. Nearly all workers currently overseas will be pulled from the field and returned to the US within 30 days, other than those deemed essential, the AP reports. The official...

Democrats Are Blocked From USAID Office

Lawmakers address protesters outside, demanding Trump and Musk stop attacks on agency

(Newser) - Congressional Democrats who went to USAID's headquarters in Washington on Monday to oppose efforts to shut the agency down —as Elon Musk said he and President Trump will do—were denied entry. The group then addressed other protesters, saying Trump's actions are illegal and harmful to national...

Rubio: I'm Now the Acting Director of USAID

Democrats say Congress needs to approve any attempt to fold agency into State Department

(Newser) - Hours after Elon Musk boasted about throwing USAID "into the wood chipper" over the weekend. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was in charge of the foreign aid agency. Rubio, speaking to reporters in El Salvador, said he is now the acting administrator of USAID but he has...

USAID Security Chiefs Who Refused Musk Are on Leave
Elon Musk:
Time for
USAID 'to Die'
UPDATED
Feb 3, 2025 12:30 AM CST

Elon Musk: Time for USAID 'to Die'

He says Trump has agreed to 'shut it down'

(Newser) - Elon Musk says it's time for USAID, the federal agency that oversees foreign aid to civilians, "to die." Musk's post on X came soon after reports that two of the agency's top security chiefs are on leave after allegedly refusing access to classified material to...

USAID Officials Put on Leave for Allegedly Flouting Trump Order

Details are not clear, but decision applies to 56 top officials

(Newser) - The top US aid and development agency is in disarray following the abrupt freeze on foreign aid issued by the State Department on Friday. Thousands of humanitarian, development, and security programs funded by the US had either halted their work or were in the process of doing so, and employees...

Watchdog: We Warned Biden on Gaza Pier, He Did It Anyway

USAID staffers had concerns that pier would undermine convincing Israel on other aid methods

(Newser) - President Biden ordered the construction of a temporary pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza earlier this year, even as some staffers for the US Agency for International Development expressed concerns that the effort would be difficult to pull off and undercut the effort to persuade Israel to open "...

In Places Scrubbed of Ebola, Virus Rears Its Head

Health officials warn Ebola's erratic spread is out of control

(Newser) - Just months ago, Doctors Without Borders was packing up its bags and leaving an Ebola-free region in Guinea; that site, Macenta, is now the hotbed site of 30 new cases, in what the AP reports is a sign of the virus' resurgence. Health officials are declaring, once again , that the...

American on Hunger Strike in Cuban Jail

Alan Gross has been jailed for 4 years, wants out

(Newser) - After four years cooling his heels in a Cuban prison, American Alan Gross has begun a hunger strike he says is a protest against his treatment by both Havana and Washington. Gross, 64, was arrested in 2009 while working for USAID as a sub-contractor to get Internet access to Cuba'...

US Starts Scrubbing Agent Orange From Vietnam

First direct contribution 'a little late': activist

(Newser) - For the first time since the Vietnam War ended, the US is getting its hands dirty in the effort to clear Agent Orange out of Vietnam. Washington is forking over $41 million to support the removal of the herbicide that caused, by Vietnam's count, 150,000 kids to be...

Obama&#39;s &#39;Boring&#39; Aid Is Saving Lives in Africa
Obama's 'Boring' Aid
Is Saving Lives in Africa
nicholas kristof
Jul 12, 2012 2:02 PM CDT

Obama's 'Boring' Aid Is Saving Lives in Africa

Nicholas Kristof: US emphasis on agriculture isn't sexy, but it's effective

(Newser) - President Obama deserves credit for a great foreign aid success, writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times , but it's a safe bet you haven't heard of it. That's because it's happening not in a war zone or some sexy locale but on small farms in...

We&#39;re Wasting Billions in Afghanistan Aid
 We're Wasting Billions 
 in Afghanistan Aid 
OPINION
Jan 11, 2012 11:50 AM CST

We're Wasting Billions in Afghanistan Aid

US has spent $73B since 9/11, but accounting is too lax: James R. Petersen

(Newser) - The US has poured $73 billion in reconstruction aid into Afghanistan since 9/11, but only a small fraction of that has reached the intended recipients, writes a former government auditor. "Where has all the money gone?" asks James R. Petersen, who worked in Afghanistan and later with the US...

US Report Questions Haiti Death Toll

True count may be 250K less than Haitian estimate

(Newser) - The number of people killed or made homeless by the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti last year is well below the Haitian government's figures, according to a report commissioned by the US government. The researchers estimate that between 46,000 and 85,000 people were killed in the quake,...

US Spends $20M on Sesame Street Redo for Pakistan
US Spends $20M to Redo Sesame Street for Pakistan
but big bird's not invited
Apr 8, 2011 2:23 AM CDT

US Spends $20M to Redo Sesame Street for Pakistan

Makeover aimed at boosting education, tolerance, fighting extremism

(Newser) - Out of the $1.5 billion in civilian aid the US is sending to Pakistan this year, $20 million is being used to enlist Elmo in the fight against Islamic extremism. USAid is funding a Pakistani remake of Sesame Street in an effort to educate children in deprived areas, the...

GOP Budget Would Kill 70K Kids: USAID Chief

Foreign aid vital for economy's future, Rajiv Shah argues

(Newser) - House Republicans' version of the budget deal to keep the government running would cause the deaths of at least 70,000 children around the world who depend on America aid, USAID chief Rajiv Shah testified yesterday. The agency predicts that 30,000 will die because of the scaling back of...

Liz Cheney: I May Seek Office
 Liz Cheney: 
 I May Seek Office 
Jul 13, 2009 12:53 PM CDT

Liz Cheney: I May Seek Office

(Newser) - DIck Cheney's daughter Liz is considering a run for public office. “It's something I very well may do,” the lawyer and Bush-era State Department deputy secretary tells the Washington Times. Cheney says she's particularly worried about Congressional Democrats' attempts to hang charges of CIA meddling on her father....

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