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    USAid cuts sow feeling of betrayal among Yazidis, 10 years after IS genocide

    During the first Trump administration, Mike Pence, the vice-president, pledged hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly through USAid and the state department, to help Christians and other religious minorities who were persecuted by Islamic State and – in the case of the Yazidis – suffered a genocide.But under the second Trump administration, the same figures who championed the rights of religious minorities have fallen silent or actively participated in the destruction of USAid, cutting crucial aid to support the same communities they once helped – who now feel abandoned by the US.That has had an immediate effect on the ground, according to activists and current and former USAid employees, who said the cutoff in aid has paused work among still traumatised communities and sown a feeling of betrayal 10 years after the genocide.View image in fullscreenIn Sinjar, the Iraqi town where thousands were massacred by IS, the freeze has halted operations to provide water and electricity, primary healthcare centres, the construction of schools, community centres and other basic infrastructure at a time when thousands of Yazidis are returning home after more than a decade in Syrian refugee camps. In one case, electricity transformers already delivered had to be put into storage because of the stop-work order, leaving a community without reliable electricity.“It was a shock that USAid was frozen for helping those communities that the US had helped to survive. [Before], US help was omnipresent,” said Mirza Dinnayi, a prominent Yazidi human rights activists who runs the House of Co-Existence (HOC) multicultural community center in Sinjar.He said that USAid, which provided the vast majority of humanitarian funding to the area, had been was a “pillar of stabilisation and normalisation”.“They had a crucial role in his first administration for recognising the Yazidi genocide and supporting US aid to help Iraq,” said Dinnayi. “Minority rights and religious freedoms were supported in the first administration. I’m wondering why the second administration is not aware about that.”View image in fullscreenCharities supporting Christian minorities, such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS), have also been directly affected by the work stoppage, including their programs in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains area and among Christian communities, according to people familiar with their work in the area. CRS, a top recipient of funds from USAid, is facing up to 50% layoffs this year and has begun shutting down programs that account for half of the organization’s $1.5bn budget, according to an email obtained by the National Catholic Reporter.“I see a lot of harm in the abrupt way that this assistance has stopped,” said a former USAid employee in Iraq.Meanwhile in Washington, a coterie of conservatives – many with former ties to Pence and USAid – have now allied with Elon Musk’s effort to take down the agency.One of them is Max Primorac, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, who authored Project 2025’s chapter on USAid recommending a blueprint to downsize the agency. He is set to testify before the House foreign affairs committee on Thursday at a hearing titled the “USAid betrayal”.Primorac did not respond to a request for an interview sent through the Heritage Foundation.View image in fullscreenPrimorac is one of a number of prominent conservatives who supported Pence’s initiative to support religious minorities but have now gone on record backing the aid freeze. Others include Pence himself, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and Pete Marocco, the Trump ally and USAid skeptic who nonetheless protected funding to religious initiatives under Pence. Marocco even reportedly led operations with his Patriot Group International to exfiltrate Yazidis in 2016.From late 2018 to early 2019, Primorac traveled to Erbil and northern Iraq as Pence’s special envoy, “overseeing a multi-agency genocide recovery effort to assist religious minority returns”, according to his current biography on the Heritage Foundation’s website.Colleagues said he arrived with a dim view of USAid but that he came to support at least some of the efforts the agency was making in the field.“He had a couple of visits to areas where we worked and I think that changed him a bit in a positive way,” said a USAid employee.Now, the person said, “for someone who really believed in his mission supporting religious minorities, he does not seem to be paying attention or advocating for a way forward.”Primorac later boasted that he had led a “$400m counter-genocide program… to spur the return of Iraqi Christians to their ancient homeland” and excoriated the Biden administration for turning its back on Iraq’s “traumatised” Christians.“Under the Trump administration, I led a counter-genocide program in Iraq to help Christian and Yazidi victims recover from IS’s campaign of extermination,” he wrote in another article for Newsweek. “We provided these traumatized religious minorities with humanitarian aid, [and] psycho-social help.”Now he has become one of the leading voices calling for the agency’s dissolution, authoring a recent Fox News editorial “how USAid went woke and destroyed itself”. An advance copy of his testimony to the House set for Thursday did not reference his work in Iraq.Former colleagues say they share some of Primorac’s criticisms of USAid but were perplexed by his full-scale repudiation of their work, the programs he previously cooperated with.View image in fullscreen“If we are going to achieve meaningful reform in the foreign assistance system, we need honest dialogue, and it’s important for me to acknowledge that I share some of his critiques about USAid,” said a person who leads a major USAid funded project in Iraq.“I only wish that [Primorac] would approach the conversation in a similar way, acknowledging all of the great work that USAid has achieved – especially in Iraq.”The change reflects how top Republicans are hedging their views under the Trump administration and a campaign led by Musk to eviscerate the agency, which he has called “criminal” and “corrupt”.Current and former USAid members in the field said that they have heard nothing from their former supporters in the US, and have effectively been cut out of systems that would give crucial information on budgets and projects meant to support communities.“It’s quite puzzling, to be honest,” said one former USAid employee in Iraq.Meanwhile, the onslaught in Washington has continued. At the International Religious Freedom Summit last week, vice-president JD Vance denounced USAid for promoting “atheism” while boasting of “bringing relief to Yazidis, Christians and other faith communities facing genocidal terror from Isis” in the past.“It was perplexing to hear the vice president champion these initiatives while, at the same time, funds for efforts like these are literally being turned off,” wrote Adam Nicholas Phillips, the lead administration official at USAid working on faith-based partnerships during the Biden administration.“Maybe the attacks on USAid are just misinformed and will be righted. Maybe there is a bold plan to invest in foreign assistance. I take administration officials at their word and I’m praying these decisions are reversed with haste.” More

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    US justice department sues New York over immigration rules

    The US attorney general announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration is suing New York state over its immigration policies, accusing state officials of choosing “to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens”.Standing in front of federal agents who have been tasked with helping in Trump’s immigration crackdown, Pam Bondi echoed the president’s rhetoric as she vowed the justice department would take on communities that thwart federal immigration efforts.Bondi said she was out to end New York’s “green light” law, which allows people in the state to get a driver’s license without citizenship or legal residency status. The law was enacted partly to improve public safety on the roads, as people without licenses sometimes drove without one, or without having passed a road test. The state also makes it easier for holders of such licenses to get auto insurance, thus cutting down on crashes involving uninsured drivers.“It stops,” Bondi said. “It stops today.”The lawsuit describes the law as “a frontal assault on the federal immigration laws, and the federal authorities that administer them”. It highlights a provision that requires the state’s department of motor vehicles commissioner to inform people who are in the country illegally when a federal immigration agency has requested their information. The justice department is asking the court to strike down the law. (Although the suit is civil, not criminal, Bondi caused confusion by saying that the justice department had “filed charges” against the state of New York.)Bondi made the announcement alongside Tammy Nobles, whose 20-year-old daughter was killed in Aberdeen, Maryland, in July 2022 by someone from El Salvador who had entered the country illegally months earlier in Texas.Bondi’s politically charged rhetoric, unusual for an institution that has historically been wary of aligning itself so directly with the White House, and the selection of legal targets raise fresh concerns that she could seek to use the agency’s law enforcement powers to go after the president’s adversaries. James, the New York attorney general, has drawn Trump’s ire by suing him, leading to a civil fraud judgment that stands to cost Trump nearly $500m.James said in a statement that she’s prepared to defend the state’s laws, which she said “protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe”.The lawsuit comes days after the justice department sued the city of Chicago, alleging that its “sanctuary” laws were thwarting federal efforts to enforce immigration laws. More

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    Judge rules Trump can downsize federal government with worker buyouts

    Donald Trump’s buyout program for federal employees can proceed, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. The move paves a path forward for the 65,000 government workers who have volunteered to resign under the president’s plan to shrink the federal workforce.The US district judge George O’Toole Jr in Boston – who halted the so-called “Fork in the Road” program last week, before its 6 February deadline, to assess whether it was legal – found that the unions who had sued on behalf of their employees did not have legal standing to challenge the resignation offer because it would not directly affect them. O’Toole did not rule on the legality of the program itself.It was a significant legal victory for the Republican president after a string of courtroom setbacks.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told the Associated Press: “This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities.”Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal workers, told Reuters: “Today’s ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it’s not the end of that fight.”In a statement, Kelley added that the union’s lawyers were evaluating the decision and assessing next steps.The union maintains that requiring US citizens to make a decision about “whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk” is illegal.The deferred resignation program has been spearheaded by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who is serving as Trump’s top adviser for reducing federal spending. Under the plan, employees can stop working and get paid until 30 September.Officials have been told to prepare staff cuts of up to 70% at some agencies, sources told Reuters. The 65,000 federal employees who have signed up for the buyouts, according to a White House official, equal about 3% of the total civilian workforce.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLabor unions argued the plan is illegal and asked for O’Toole to keep it on hold and prevent the office of personnel management, or OPM, from soliciting more workers to sign up. The administration said the program is now closed to new applicants.The resignation offer is one of several tactics Trump and Musk have taken to gut the federal workforce in recent weeks, alongside massive cuts to foreign aid and the Department of Education. After Musk spent $250m to re-elect Trump, the president named the tech billionaire head of a newly minted, so-called “department of government efficiency”, designed to slash federal spending. More

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    X to pay Donald Trump $10m to settle lawsuit over Capitol attack – report

    Elon Musk’s social media platform X will pay Donald Trump $10m to settle a lawsuit the president filed after he was banned from the platform following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a report.The lawsuit was filed against X under the leadership of its previous CEO, Jack Dorsey. After Musk purchased X, reinstated Trump’s account, began developing a relationship with the president and spent $250m on his re-election campaign, Trump’s legal team considered abandoning the lawsuit, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the case.But, ultimately, Trump’s lawyers went ahead with the case.The settlement will mark the second time a social media platform has paid Trump millions after the 2021 siege of the Capitol. In January, Meta agreed to pay the president $25m – including $22m to Trump’s presidential library – to settle a similar lawsuit after Facebook suspended Trump’s account. Trump’s attorneys are expected to pursue a similar settlement with Google over its decision to ban the president from YouTube after the attack.In recent months, Trump has formed a close relationship with Musk, resulting in his appointment to lead the newly formed “department of government efficiency”. On Tuesday, Musk took questions from reporters alongside the president in an Oval Office ceremony regarding the closure of government offices.Trump’s lawsuit against X stems from the president’s use of the platform, then still called Twitter, to spread falsehoods after he lost the 2020 election. Trump used his account to encourage his followers to attend a “Stop the Steal” rally on 6 January 2021 before the storming of the Capitol.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    Musk’s ‘efficiency’ agency site adds data from controversial rightwing thinktank

    Flanked by Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week, Elon Musk claimed his much-vaunted, but ill-defined, “department of government efficiency” (Doge) was providing “maximum transparency” on its blitz through the federal government.Its official website was empty, however – until Wednesday, when it added elements including data from a controversial rightwing thinktank recently sued by a climate scientist.New elements include Doge’s feed from X, Musk’s social network, and a blank section for savings identified by the agency, promised to be updated “no later than” Valentine’s Day.At the top of the website’s regulations page, Doge used data published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian thinktank that claims to fight “climate alarmism”.The CEI’s “unconstitutionality index”, which it started in 2003, compares regulations or rules introduced by government agencies with laws enacted by Congress.The CEI claims to fight “climate alarmism”, and has long worked to block climate-focused policies, successfully lobbying against the ratification of the international climate treaty the Kyoto protocol in 1997, as well as the enactment of the 2009 Waxman-Markey bill, which aimed to place a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.The thinktank ran ads to counter Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, claiming in one ad: “The Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker, not thinner … Why are they trying to scare us?” In a second ad, the thinktank said carbon dioxide was “essential to life”, adding: “They call it pollution. We call it life.” The campaign incited pushback from a scientist who said their research was misrepresented in the ads.During Trump’s first term, the organization also successfully pushed him to pull the US from the 2015 Paris climate treaty. Today, it regularly publishes arguments against the mandatory disclosure of climate-related financial risks and increased efficiency regulations on appliances.Last January, the CEI lost a lawsuit filed against it by the climate scientist Dr Michael Mann for $1m in punitive damages.The thinktank has extensive ties to the far-right network formed by the fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother David. In 2020, the network provided some $900,000 to CEI, public records show – a number that is likely an underestimate, as it does not include “dark money” contributions which need not be disclosed. CEI also accepted more than $640,000 from the Koch network between 1997 and 2015.Its other donors have included the nation’s top oil and gas lobbying group, American Petroleum Institute, and the fossil fuel giant Exxon. The thinktank is also an associate member of ultraconservative State Policy Network, which has also received funding from Koch-linked groups and whose members have fought to pass punitive anti-pipeline protest laws.The White House and CEI were contacted for comment. More

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    Trump administration sued for access to immigration detainees at Guantánamo Bay – live

    A coalition of immigrant rights organizations has sued the Trump administration for access to undocumented immigrants held at Guantánamo Bay.The group, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union and its Washington DC affiliate along with the Center for Constitutional Rights and International Refugee Assistance Project, sued on behalf of several detainees brought to the US military base under a new Trump administration policy, as well as multiple legal service providers seeking to access people held there. Also among the plaintiffs is a family member of a man detained at Guantánamo.“The Trump administration cannot be allowed to build upon Guantánamo’s sordid past with these latest cruel, secretive, and illegal maneuvers. Our constitution does not allow the government to hold people incommunicado, without any ability to speak to counsel or the outside world,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project.Here’s more about the Trump administration’s decision to send migrants to the base in Cuba:Speaking to reporters in the Oval office after Tulsi Gabbard’s swearing in as his intelligence director, Donald Trump said that he had “a great call” with President Vladimir Putin of Russia that lasted for “over an hour this morning” on the subject of ending the war in Ukraine. “I also had a call with President Zelensky, a very good call after that, and I think we’re on the way to getting peace”.After again claiming that as many as 1.5 million soldiers had been killed in the war, a vastly larger number than either nation, or independent experts estimate, Trump said that a meeting between his Vice President, JD Vance and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky this week at the Munich Security Conference would be part of the peace talks.“I’ll be dealing with President Putin, largely on the phone, and we ultimately expect to meet. In fact, we expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re going to meet also, probably in Saudi Arabia. The first time we’ll meet in Saudi Arabia, to see if we get something done”.Trump suggested that the meeting would be arranged by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The Saudi crown prince and the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, were involved in negotiations for the release of American teacher Marc Fogel from a Russian prison, a source close to the negotiations between Russia and the United States told Reuters earlier on Wednesday.Donald Trump was just asked during the Oval Office ceremony to swear in Tulsi Gabbard how soon he would like the Department of Education to be closed.Jennifer Jacobs of CBS News reports on X that he replied: right away.“It’s a con job” the president said.Moments after being sworn in as director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard promises “to refocus our intelligence community” in remarks in the Oval Office.Here is some of what Gabbard said to the pool reporters allowed into the room, as Trump and Bondi looked on:
    Unfortunately, the American people have very little trust in the intelligence community, largely because they’ve seen the weaponization and politicization of an entity that is supposed to be purely focused on ensuring our national security.So I look forward to being able to help fulfill that mandate that the American people delivered to you very clearly in this election to refocus our intelligence community by empowering the great patriots who have chosen to serve our country in this way and focus on ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people. As you said, Mr. President, this is what I’ve dedicated my life to, and it is truly humbling to be in this position to serve in your administration help to rebuild that trust and ultimately to keep the American people safe. Last thing I’ll mention is that in your National Prayer Breakfast speech, you made a statement about your legacy of wanting to be remembered as a peacemaker. I know that I can speak for many of my fellow service members who are here today, veterans, Medal of Honor recipients, how deeply that resonates with us. For those who volunteer to put their lives on the line when duty calls, but to have a president, commander in chief who recognizes the cost of that sacrifice and ensuring that war is the last resort, not the first. So thank you for your leadership. On behalf of my friends here and all who wear the uniform, we’re grateful.
    Tulsi Gabbard has been sworn in as Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, in an Oval Office ceremony attended by the president.Attorney general Pam Bondi administered the oath.Trump spoke briefly about Gabbard, calling her “an American of extraordinary courage and patriotism”. He’s scheduled to sign unspecified executive orders in a few minutes.The trustees of the Kennedy Center have elected Donald Trump as their chairman, the Washington Post reports, after the president made the unusual announcement that he would like to oversee the Washington DC performing arts venue.The president had earlier this week named Ric Grenell, a diplomat and longtime associate, as the center’s interim executive director, a decision that raised fears of politicization at the venue. The Post reports that the center’s current president Deborah Rutter told staff she was stepping down, and that Trump had also ordered the firing of all of Joe Biden’s appointees to the center’s board. Here’s more on Trump’s foray into the performing arts:A coalition of immigrant rights organizations has sued the Trump administration for access to undocumented immigrants held at Guantánamo Bay.The group, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union and its Washington DC affiliate along with the Center for Constitutional Rights and International Refugee Assistance Project, sued on behalf of several detainees brought to the US military base under a new Trump administration policy, as well as multiple legal service providers seeking to access people held there. Also among the plaintiffs is a family member of a man detained at Guantánamo.“The Trump administration cannot be allowed to build upon Guantánamo’s sordid past with these latest cruel, secretive, and illegal maneuvers. Our constitution does not allow the government to hold people incommunicado, without any ability to speak to counsel or the outside world,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project.Here’s more about the Trump administration’s decision to send migrants to the base in Cuba:White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hit back at legal scholars concerned that Donald Trump’s government-transforming executive orders have sparked a constitutional crisis, saying that the administration is acting lawfully.“The real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges and liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block president Trump’s basic executive authority,” Leavitt said at her press briefing earlier today. She then attacked federal judges who have disrupted the administration’s policies:
    We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law, and they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits. This is part of a larger concerted effort by Democrat activists and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice by president Trump.
    Meanwhile, the Democratic state attorneys general who have led much of the legal pushback to Trump believe they are fighting a “dictatorship”. Here’s more on that:The chaotic effects of Donald Trump’s drive to dismantle USAid continue to be uncovered, with Reuters reporting that 17 labs in 13 states have had to halt farm research as the agency unraveled.That could set back efforts to stay on top of emerging threats to agriculture in the United States, researchers who spoke to Reuters said. Here’s more:
    The lab closures are another hit to U.S. agriculture from President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the federal government, by blocking research work designed to advance seed and equipment technology and develop markets abroad for U.S. commodities. Farmers have already seen disruptions to government food purchases for aid, and to agricultural grant and loan programs.
    Land-grant universities were founded on land given to states by the federal government.
    “For U.S. farmers, this is not good,” said Peter Goldsmith, who leads the University of Illinois’ Soybean Innovation Lab, one of the affected labs.
    The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
    The network of 17 laboratories was funded by USAID through a program called Feed the Future Innovation Labs, and pursued research in partnership with countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Rwanda, the lab directors said.
    Their research helps U.S. farmers because programs conducted overseas can develop production practices that may be useful in the U.S. or provide advance warning of pests, directors said.
    “It really reduces our capacity to help farmers fight pests and diseases and help American farmers prevent incursions,” said David Hughes, director of the USAID Innovation Lab on Current and Emerging Threats to Crops at Penn State University.
    One study that has been halted was working to control a viral disease spread by an aphid that was hurting banana crops in Tanzania, Hughes said.
    David Tschirley, who runs an agency-funded lab at Michigan State University and is chair of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab Council, which represents the lab network, said about 300 people are employed by the labs, and they have as many as 4,000 collaborators abroad.
    “It presents an American face to the world that is a very appreciated face,” he said, adding that such work benefits national security.
    Speaking at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out Nato membership for Ukraine, which the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been pushing for.“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine,” Hegseth said, adding that the expectation Ukraine’s borders could revert to their 2014 status before the annexation of Crimea is “unrealistic.”Three people, including one American, are being released from Belarus, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday. The US envoy for hostages, Adam Boehler, told reporters at the White House that the individual wishes to remain private.The news comes shortly after American schoolteacher Marc Fogel was released by Russia after being imprisoned since 2021. Fogel was arrested in Moscow after Russian authorities found less than an ounce of marijuana in his luggage.The White House said on Wednesday that it was not aware of any preconditions for US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit each other’s countries.“Not that I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, when asked at a press briefing if there were conditions for Trump’s and Putin’s visits.“I was just talking with the president and our national security team, I wasn’t made aware of any conditions,” she added.The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was heckled during a visit to a US military installation in Germany as military families protested against the Trump administration’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.About two dozen adults who live at the military base chanted “DEI” and booed at Hegseth as he arrived to the US European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, NBC News reported.Separately, a group of students attending the Patch middle school, also in Stuttgart, held a walkout, according to a letter from the school obtained by the Washington Post. More