China, Russia and India have dispatched emergency teams and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Myanmar. So have Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. The United States, the richest country in the world and once its most generous provider of foreign aid, has sent nothing. Even as President Trump was dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, he said that … Read more
When she finds it hard to focus, Nilab jots down her worries on slips of paper and pins them to her wall, a strategy she picked up in a seminar on mental health at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. She makes a mental note to deal with the issues at a scheduled time … Read more
When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. convened democracy summits at the White House in 2021 and 2023, he pointedly disinvited President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a man he had once described an “autocrat” who deserved to be driven from office by voters. On Tuesday, President Trump offered a much rosier assessment of the Turkish … Read more
A federal appeals court on Friday allowed Elon Musk and his team of analysts to resume their work in helping to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, clearing the way for them to continue while the government appeals the earlier ruling. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for … Read more
The Trump administration on Friday detailed its plans to put the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s main agency for distributing foreign aid, fully under the State Department and reduce its staff to some 15 positions. An email to U.S.A.I.D. employees informing them of the impending layoffs, titled “U.S.A.I.D.’s Final Mission” and sent just … Read more
Myanmar’s long isolation and its internal instability are likely to complicate the global humanitarian aid response to the earthquake that struck on Friday, despite a rare plea for outside help from the country’s military-dominated government. “We need and want the international community to provide humanitarian aid,” said the military spokesman, Gen. Zaw Min Tun. “We … Read more
The Trump administration intends to terminate the United States’ financial support for Gavi, the organization that has helped purchase critical vaccines for children in developing countries, saving millions of lives over the past quarter century, and to significantly scale back support for efforts to combat malaria, one of the biggest killers globally. The administration has … Read more
The State Department plans to reconstitute U.S.A.I.D. as the U.S. Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance and abolish its status as an independent agency, according to an internal planning memo reviewed by The Times. Because of the way U.S.A.I.D. was established, Congress would have approve changes the Trump administration makes to the agency. If the planned … Read more
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency on Tuesday reversed a change that had made some of its claims far more difficult to fact-check. In early March, the group — which had been caught in a series of high-profile errors — began posting itemized claims about the savings it had achieved from canceling federal grants. Its … Read more
A federal judge found on Tuesday that efforts by Elon Musk and his team to permanently shutter the United States Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution “in multiple ways” and robbed Congress of its authority to oversee the dissolution of an agency it created. The ruling by Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. … Read more