USAid

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares162 Views

    Musk and Doge’s USAid shutdown likely violated US constitution, judge rules

    by

    A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) likely violated the US constitution by shutting down USAid, ordering the Trump administration to reverse some of the actions it took to dismantle the agency.The decision by US district judge Theodore Chuang was sweeping in its scope and marked a major setback for the administration’s signature takedown in its effort to bulldoze through the federal government.As part of an injunction that directed the Trump administration to reverse course, the judge halted efforts to terminate USAid officials and contractors, and reinstate former employees’ access to their government email, security and payment systems.The judge also compelled the administration to allow USAid to return to its currently shuttered headquarters at the Ronald Regan building in the event that the underlying case challenging the closure of the agency was successful. The administration is expected to appeal the ruling.At issue in the lawsuit, brought by more than two dozen unnamed former USAid employees in federal district court in Maryland, was Musk’s role in overseeing the deletion of the USAid website and the shut down of its headquarters.Chuang wrote in his 68-page opinion that Musk had likely violated the appointments clause of the constitution by effectively acting with the far-reaching powers of an “officer of the United States”, a designation that requires Senate confirmation.“If a president could escape appointments clause scrutiny by having advisers go beyond the traditional role of White House advisors who communicate the president’s priority to agency heads,” Chuang wrote, “the appointments clause would be reduced to nothing more than a technical formality.”The Trump administration has said for weeks that the moves to dismantle USAid were carried out by the agency’s leaders – currently secretary of state Marco Rubio and acting administrator Pete Marocco – who were implementing recommendations from Musk.But Chuang rejected that contention with respect to the closure of USAid headquarters and the erasure of its website, saying that the administration provided no evidence that they were formally authorized by a USAid official.“Under these circumstances, the evidence presently favors the conclusion that contrary to defendants’ sweeping claim that Musk acted only as an advisor, Musk made the decisions to shutdown USAID’s headquarters and website even though he ‘lacked the authority to make that decision,’” Chuang wrote.The injunction follows six weeks of unprecedented turmoil at USAid, where 5,200 of 6,200 global programs were abruptly terminated, staff were locked out of facilities and systems, and employees reportedly received directives to destroy classified documents using shredders and “burn bags”.The agency’s workforce has been decimated from over 10,000 to just 611 employees, with Rubio characterizing the remaining programs as “set for absorption” by the state department – what he recently praised as “overdue and historic reform”.USAid’s headquarters became central to the controversy when multiple staffers told the Guardian in February that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials had been conducting extensive “walkthrough” tours to potentially take over the facility while agency employees remained barred entry.Politico later reported that CBP had officially taken over the office space and signed a lease agreement, according to a CBP spokesperson. The court order’s 14-day deadline for the administration to confirm USAid could return to its building suggested the space may have already been reallocated.The injunction also prohibits Doge from publishing unredacted personal information of USAid contractors and halts further dismantling actions, including terminations, contract cancellations, and permanent deletion of electronic records.That may already be a serious exposure problem for Musk and the rest of Doge, as an internal email obtained by the Guardian revealed how staff had been instructed to spend the day destroying classified “SECRET” documents – potentially breaking compliance with the Federal Records Act, which prohibits destroying government records before their designated retention period, which is typically two years. More

    More stories

    • 200 Shares162 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘It’s back to drug rationing’: the end of HIV was in sight. Then came the cuts

      by

      This year the world should have been “talking about the virtual elimination of HIV” in the near future. “Within five years,” says Prof Sharon Lewin, a leading researcher in the field. “Now that’s all very uncertain.”Scientific advances had allowed doctors and campaigners to feel optimistic that the end of HIV as a public health threat was just around the corner.Then came the Trump administration’s abrupt cuts to US aid funding. Now the picture is one of a return to the drugs rationing of decades ago, and of rising infections and deaths.But experts are also talking about building a new approach that would make health services, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, less vulnerable to the whims of a foreign power.The US has cancelled 83% of its foreign aid contracts and dismantled USAid, the agency responsible for coordinating most of them.Many fell under the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) programme, which has been the backbone of global efforts to tackle HIV and Aids, investing more than $110bn (£85bn) since it was founded in 2003 and credited with saving 26 million lives and preventing millions more new infections. In some African countries it covered almost all HIV spending.View image in fullscreenThere is a risk, says Lewin, director of Melbourne University’s Institute for Infection and Immunity and past president of the International Aids Society, of “dramatic increases in infections, dramatic increases in death and a real loss of decades of advances”.There is no official public list of which contracts have been cancelled, and which remain. It appears that virtually no HIV-prevention programmes funded by the US are still in operation, save a handful principally providing drugs to stop pregnant women passing on the infection to their babies. Countries report disruption to the most basic measures, such as condom distribution.Some treatment programmes have been spared, but not those whose focus conflicted with the Trump administration’s war on “gender ideology” or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), such as those working with transgender communities. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers have been laid off, while worried patients are hoarding drugs or stretching supplies, according to UNAids surveillance. UNAids itself has lost more than half of its funding.Even programmes that have survived the cull have faced turmoil since February, with instructions to stop work rescinded but with no certainty that funding will continue.View image in fullscreenIn only one example, the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Foundation says it has had to halt HIV treatment for 85,000 people in Eswatini, including more than 2,000 children, and tests for thousands of pregnant women and babies to prevent transmission and begin life-saving medication.Access to drugs represents an “immediate crisis”, Lewin says. “If people with HIV stop the medications, then not only do they get sick themselves, which is tragic, but they also then become infectious to others.”As clinics on the frontline of treating the disease scrabble to secure access to basic drugs, scientists at this month’s Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco were hearing that HIV might soon be preventable with a once-a-year injection.The drug lenacapavir was already generating huge excitement in the field, after trial results showed that a six-monthly jab could prevent HIV. New results from the manufacturer Gilead suggest that a tweak to the formula and how it is given could see its protective effects last even longer.Nevertheless, Lewin says, the mood at the meeting, packed with many of the world’s leading HIV specialists, was “dire”.As well as programme cancellations, there are “huge concerns around science and what’s going to happen to the [US] National Institutes of Health, [whose] funding of science has been so significant on every level”, she says.Some scientists in receipt of US funding have been told to remove their names from DEI-linked research, she says, even though DEI is fundamental to the HIV response.View image in fullscreen“I don’t mean that in a sort of touchy-feely way, I mean that’s what we need to do: you need to actually get those treatments to these diverse communities.”In 2022, 55% of all new HIV infections were within “key populations”, such as gay men, other men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people, prisoners and people who inject drugs.Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, of South Africa’s Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, has seen US funding for three trials of potential HIV vaccines involving eight countries cancelled and only reinstated after an appeal to the US supreme court.“We’re running around like chickens without heads to at least get one going, because the vaccines are sitting in the fridge and will expire,” she says.She led the lenacapavir trial that showed it offered 100% protection to young women in sub-Saharan Africa, but now worries about HIV/Aids prevention “falling off the radar completely”.The global community had been making headway towards the United Nations’ goal of ending Aids by 2030, she says, with a five-year plan to use “amazing new innovative tools and scale them up”, which would have led to “less dependence on foreign aid and more self-reliance” as new infections fell and attention shifted to maintaining treatment for people with HIV.“All of that is hugely at risk now because, without these funds, our governments will have to step up but they will concentrate on treatment,” she says. “We know they will do that, because that is what we did for the first 30 years.”Efforts to control Aids were entering “the last mile”, which was always likely to be more expensive, she says. “The people who were happy to come into health facilities, they would have come into health facilities.”It would be difficult to rely on government funding to reach the remaining groups, she says, not only because of fewer resources but also because in some countries it means targeting groups whose existence is illegal and unrecognised, such as sex workers or sexual minorities, and young girls may be reluctant to use government clinics if they are not supposed to be sexually active.“I feel like the odds are very stacked against us,” says Bekker, adding: “We’re obviously going to have to re-programme ourselves [and] formulate a different plan.”Pepfar had pledged funding to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to deploy 10m doses of lenacapavir in low-income countries. While the Global Fund has promised to maintain its commitment, it might receive fewer than the planned number of doses, Bekker fears.“Six months ago, I was saying the best thing we can do with lenacapavir is offer it to everybody in a choice environment. [Now] I think we’re gonna have to say who needs [injectable] prep,” she says, “and the rest have to do the best they can.“How do we make that decision? And what does that look like? It is back to sort of rationing.“When we started ARVs [antiretroviral drugs] way back in 2000,” Bekker recalls, “you would go, ‘you get treatment; you don’t, you don’t, you don’t’.“It feels terrible … but you have to get over that. You have to say it will be infection-saving for some people. And we’ve got to make it count.”View image in fullscreenFor Beatriz Grinsztejn, president of the International Aids Society, the disruption is critical and threatens many vulnerable people. But, she adds, it could present “an important opportunity for ownership – otherwise we are always left in the hands of others”.She worries about the impact of cuts to funding on younger scientists, with their potential loss from the research field “a major threat for the next generation”. But, she adds, the HIV community is “powerful and very resilient”.There have already been calls for new ways of doing things. It is “time for African leadership”, members of the African-led HIV Control Working Group write in the Lancet Global Health. There are now plans for Nigeria to produce HIV drugs and tests domestically.Christine Stegling, deputy director of UNAids, says it began “a concerted effort” last year to develop plans with countries about how their HIV programmes could become more sustainable domestically “but with a longer timeframe … now we are trying to do some kind of fast-tracking”.Governments are determined, she says, but it will require fiscal changes either in taxation or by restructuring debt.The goal of ending Aids by 2030 is still achievable, Stegling believes. “I think we have a very short window of opportunity now, in the next two, three months, to continue telling people that we can do it.“I keep on reminding people, ‘look, we need to get back to that same energy that we had when people were telling us treatment can’t be available in the global south, right?’ And we didn’t accept it. We made it happen.“We have national governments now who are also very adamant, because they can see what can happen, and they want to make it happen for their own populations.” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ACLU warns pro-Palestinian activist’s arrest meant ‘to intimidate and chill speech’ – live

      by

      The Trump administration’s decision to have immigration authorities arrest pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for alleged support of Hamas is an attack on free speech, the American Civil Liberties Union warned.“This arrest is unprecedented, illegal, and un-American,” said Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.“The federal government is claiming the authority to deport people with deep ties to the U.S. and revoke their green cards for advocating positions that the government opposes. To be clear: the first amendment protects everyone in the US. The government’s actions are obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate. The government must immediately return Mr Khalil to New York, release him back to his family and reverse course on this discriminatory policy.”House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected Republicans’ go-it-alone strategy to avert a government shutdown, saying Democrats would not back their plan to fund federal agencies through the rest of the fiscal year.“It is not something we could ever support,” Jeffries told reporters on Capitol Hill. “House Democrats will not be complicit in the Republican effort to hurt the American people.”“The House Republican so-called spending bill does nothing to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Quite the opposite,” he said, adding that the bill would “quite dramatically” cut health benefits and nutritional assistance programs for children and American families.Jeffries did not take questions and it remains unclear whether any House Democrats will support the GOP spending bill, which could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday. House Republicans hold a wafer-thin majority and can only afford to lose a handful of votes in order to pass the measure.Congress must act by midnight on Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown.Los Angeles district attorney Nathan Hochman says that he opposes the resentencing of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted for the 1989 killing of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. In a press release on Monday, Hochman’s office said that after reviewing thousands of pages of records and transcripts and hundreds of hours of video, he found that the brothers lied during their testimony and tried to get others to lie on their behalf.
      As a full examination of the record reveals, the Menendez brothers have never come clean and admitted that they lied about their self-defense…“The Court must consider such lack of full insight and lack of acceptance of responsibility for their murderous actions in deciding whether the Menendez brothers pose an unreasonable risk of danger to the community,” Hochman said in a statement.
      The brothers were sentenced for the killings in 1996 and sentenced to life sentences without the possibility of parole.Read the rest of Hochman’s rationale here.Protests are underway in New York following the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last year. Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card who is a recent Columbia graduate, was arrested over the weekend by immigration authorities.Today’s final numbers from Wall Street are out and the three main indices have continued to drop. The S&P 500 fell 2.7%, the Dow Jones dropped 2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 4% as investors sold shares in the so-called “magnificent seven” – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla. Tesla’s shares had their worst day since September 2020, falling 15%.The fall came a day after Trump skirted around questions about a potential recession on Sunday. Asked if he expected a recession, Trump said: “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big … It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”Kevin Hassett, the head of the national economic council, told CNBC on Monday that any uncertainty around Trump’s trade policies would be resolved by early April and that the policies were “creating jobs in the US”.We’re about 10 minutes away from the market’s close and things are not looking good on Wall Street.Traders have been rattled for days by fears that Donald Trump’s tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico, and vow to impose “reciprocal” levies against countries worldwide next month, will send the US economy into recession.The terror has been particularly bad today, leading to steep sell offs in the three main indices. The broad-based S&P 500 is currently down 2.5%, while the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost 1.9%. Over at the tech-heavy Nasdaq, the bleeding has resulted in a 4% loss.Needless to say, this is not what a president who touts the stock market as a barometer of their economic success would like to see.National intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard has announced that she has revoked the security clearances of several former members of Joe Biden’s administration, as well as critics of Donald Trump.“Per @POTUS directive, I have revoked security clearances and barred access to classified information for Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zaid, Norman Eisen, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Andrew Weissman, along with the 51 signers of the Hunter Biden ‘disinformation’ letter. The President’s Daily Brief is no longer being provided to former President Biden,” Gabbard wrote on X.The decision to revoke the security clearance of Blinken, the former secretary of state, appears to have been announced last month. Trump earlier withdrew the clearances of Biden and former joint chiefs of staff chairman Mark Milley.Beyond the Biden administration, Gabbard targeted James, who has pursued a civil fraud suit against the Trump Organization, and Manhattan district attorney Bragg, who successfully prosecuted the president on felony business fraud charges.A former top social security administration official accused Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” of lying about alleged fraud discovered in the agency, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:A former chief of staff at the US Social Security Administration (SSA) described how agents of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) – Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting operation – were imposed on the agency, assailing senior staff with questions “based on the general myth of supposed widespread fraud” and acting with dangerous disregard for data confidentiality.In a declaration filed with a lawsuit on Friday and referring to the Doge agents Mike Russo and Akash Bobba, Tiffany Flick said: “We proposed briefings to help Mr Russo and Mr Bobba understand the many measures the agency takes to help ensure the accuracy of benefit payments, including those measures that help ensure we are not paying benefits to deceased individuals.“However, Mr Russo seemed completely focused on questions … based on the general myth of supposed widespread social security fraud, rather than facts.”Flick also said she was “not confident” Doge agents had “the requisite knowledge and training to prevent sensitive information from being inadvertently transferred to bad actors”, given its agents have “never been vetted by SSA or trained on SSA data, systems or programs”.“In such a chaotic environment, the risk of data leaking into the wrong hands is significant,” Flick said.The Trump administration’s decision to have immigration authorities arrest pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for alleged support of Hamas is an attack on free speech, the American Civil Liberties Union warned.“This arrest is unprecedented, illegal, and un-American,” said Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.“The federal government is claiming the authority to deport people with deep ties to the U.S. and revoke their green cards for advocating positions that the government opposes. To be clear: the first amendment protects everyone in the US. The government’s actions are obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate. The government must immediately return Mr Khalil to New York, release him back to his family and reverse course on this discriminatory policy.”Activists were arrested while disrupting the CERAWeek fossil fuel conference on Monday, chanting “people over profit”.The protesters blocked the street outside the conference hotel in Houston, where energy secretary Chris Wright and top brass from energy companies including Shell and Exxon spoke on Monday.Among those arrested was local organizer Yvette Arellano of Texas environmental justice group Fenceline Watch.“Human rights, not sacrifice,” she chanted as the police escorted her away.As the CERAWeek oil and gas conference convened fossil fuel bigwigs in Houston on Monday, hundreds of activists staged a protest down the street.“We need clean air, not another billionaire,” they chanted.Among the featured speakers at the rally was Yvette Arellano, founder and director of Fenceline Watch, a Houston-based environmental justice organization. Last year, she was barred from attending CERAWeek despite raising $8,500 for a ticket.“Unfettered” fossil fuel expansion, she said, is taking a toll on the climate while polluting vulnerable communities in Texas and beyond.“It’s our communities that are being harmed,” she said.Other activists hail from communities as far flung as Appalachia and the Standing Rock Indigenous reservation in North Dakota.A story to watch this week is Congress’s scramble to pass spending legislation and avert a shutdown that will begin Friday at midnight. These things often come down to the wire, but the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports that Donald Trump is on board with the House GOP’s proposal to keep the government open. Whether enough of their lawmakers are remains to be seen:Republican lawmakers are scrambling to avert a government shutdown set to begin on Saturday, with Donald Trump’s backing for a temporary funding measure having suddenly silenced the usual conservative opposition.The stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), would maintain government operations at current funding levels through 30 September, the end of the fiscal year. Republican US House speaker Mike Johnson said he plans to hold a procedural vote on Monday, aiming for a passage vote on Tuesday before sending lawmakers home for recess.Trump instructed reluctant fellow Republicans to fall in line behind the stopgap bill that would fund the government through September. “All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week,” the president wrote on Saturday on his Truth Social platform.Maryam Alwan, a Palestinian American senior at Columbia who has protested alongside Mahmoud Khalil, told Reuters she was “horrified for my dear friend Mahmoud, who is a legal resident, and I am horrified that this is only the beginning”.Columbia issued a revised protocol for how students and school staff should deal with federal immigration agents seeking to enter private school property, Reuters reports, saying they could enter without a judicial arrest warrant in “exigent circumstances”, which it did not specify.“By allowing ICE on campus, Columbia is surrendering to the Trump administration’s assault on universities across the country and sacrificing international students to protect its finances,” the Student Workers of Columbia said in a statement.The move to arrest and detain Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil comes after the Trump administration announced last week that it would revoke about $400m in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University.The Trump administration alleges that the university has not done enough to stop antisemitism on campus.“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” education secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement on Friday.Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against the war in Gaza that swept college campuses last spring, the Associated Press reported Sunday.The Trump administration has claimed participants forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.Before Trump addressed Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, free speech organizations and advocates are expressing outrage over his detention over the weekend.Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card, was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities on Saturday night, who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.Read the full story:In a post on Truth Social, president Donald Trump confirmed the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist and permanent US resident with a green card.“This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump said.The president said Ice took Khalil, who led protests at Columbia University during his time as a student there, into custody after his executive order and claimed, without evidence, that similar activists on college campuses are paid agitators, not students.Here’s the text of Trump’s full post:
      Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply. Thank you!
      Ontario premier Doug Ford announced a 25% tax on exports of electricity to New York, Minnesota and Michigan in retaliation for the tariffs Donald Trump imposed on Canada last week, the Associated Press reports.Trump has since exempted many Canadian products from the 25% levies, but Ford refused to back down and warned he may increase the surcharge or even cut off electricity exports entirely if the United States escalates its tariffs.Here’s more, from the AP:
      “I will not hesitate to increase this charge. If the United State escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference in Toronto.
      “Believe me when I say I do not want to do this. I feel terrible for the American people who didn’t start this trade war. It’s one person who is responsible, it’s President Trump.”
      Ford said Ontario’s tariff would remain in place despite the one-month reprieve from Trump, noting a one-month pause means nothing but more uncertainty. Quebec is also considering taking similar measures with electricity exports to the U.S.
      Ford’s office said the new market rules require any generator selling electricity to the U.S. to add a 25% surcharge. Ontario’s government expects it to generate revenue of $300,000 Canadian dollars ($208,000) to CA$400,000 ($277,000) per day, “which will be used to support Ontario workers, families and businesses.”
      The new surcharge is in addition to the federal government’s initial CA$30 billion ($21 billion) worth of retaliatory tariffs have been applied on items like American orange juice, peanut butter, coffee, appliances, footwear, cosmetics, motorcycles and certain pulp and paper products.
      Secretary of state Marco Rubio announced that USAid had cancelled the majority of its programs, while the rest will be folded into the state department. The decision was reportedly made early, and after many of the shuttered aid agency’s partners believed they had more time to request to preserve their programs. It was also met with approval from Elon Musk, after reports emerged last week that he squabbled with Rubio at a cabinet meeting attended by Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the arrest of pro-Palestinian activist and US green card holder Mahmoud Khalil by immigration agents has sparked concerns that the Trump administration is looking to retaliate against speech it does not approve of. The homeland security department said Khalil’s detention was in line with an executive order targeting “activities aligned to Hamas”.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      Wall Street fell significantly as traders grew concerned over the possibility that Trump’s trade war will send the US economy into a recession.

      A top state department official has a history of insulting his boss in social media posts, among many other questionable statements.

      Trump will sign more executive orders at 3pm, though the White House did not say what they will concern. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Rubio says 83% of USAid programs terminated after six-week purge

      by

      The Trump administration has taken an axe to US foreign aid, eliminating 83% of programs run by the US Agency for International Development (USAid) in a sweeping six-week purge that has done away with entire categories of development work that took decades to build up.Secretary of state Marco Rubio announced the massive cuts on Monday, posting that roughly 5,200 of USAid’s 6,200 global programs have been terminated. The surviving initiatives – less than a fifth of America’s previous aid portfolio – will be absorbed by the state department.“Our hard-working staff who worked very long hours” alongside Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) teams deserve credit for this “overdue and historic reform”, Rubio wrote on X, using his personal account.The mass terminations follow Donald Trump’s 20 January executive order freezing foreign assistance for review that he claimed pushed forward a liberal global agenda.This abrupt dismantling also overturns decades of bipartisan consensus that humanitarian and development assistance serves American security interests by stabilizing fragile regions, fostering economic growth, and building diplomatic goodwill – and were backed by Musk’s unofficial government efficiency unit.“Tough, but necessary. Good working with you. The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept of State,” Musk responded on X following Rubio’s announcement.The New York Times reported last week that there had been serious cut-ups between Musk and Rubio at a recent cabinet meeting over proposed cuts to the state department.During that meeting, Trump reportedly defended Rubio for doing a “great job” and said that Musk’s team would be merely advising cabinet secretaries about future cuts. But Rubio’s apparent embrace of Musk’s objectives reveal the extent to which the billionaire Trump supporter wields power in the administration.Rubio’s social media post on Monday said that review was now “officially ending”, with about 5,200 of USAid’s 6,200 programs eliminated.Those programs “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States”, Rubio wrote.“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping … to be administered more effectively under the state department,” he said. Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally funded programs illegal, saying such a move requires Congress’s approval.The state department did not respond to a request for comment on the criteria being used to keep alive the remaining programs and to respond to claims that cutting programs without congressional approval is illegal.The Trump administration has given almost no details on which aid and development efforts abroad it spared as it mass-emailed contract terminations to aid groups and other USAid partners by the thousands within days earlier this month. The rapid pace, and the steps skipped in ending contracts, left USAid supporters challenging whether any actual program-by-program reviews had taken place.According to internal documents reviewed by ProPublica, top health officials at USAid had for weeks warned Rubio and other leaders about the potential death toll that would result from the cuts, along with one million children untreated for severe malnutrition, up to 166,000 malaria deaths, and 200,000 more children paralyzed by polio over the next decade if they carried out their plan.Aid groups say even some life-saving programs that Rubio and others had promised to spare got the termination notices, such as emergency nutritional support for starving children and drinking water serving sprawling camps for families uprooted by war in Sudan.Republicans broadly have made clear they want foreign assistance that would promote a far narrower interpretation of US national interests.The state department in one of multiple lawsuits it is battling over its rapid shutdown of USAid had said earlier this month it was killing more than 90% of USAid programs. Rubio gave no explanation for why his number was lower.Contractors and staffers running efforts ranging from epidemic control to famine prevention to job and democracy training stopped work. Aid groups and other USAid partners laid off tens of thousands of their workers in the US and abroad.Lawsuits say the sudden shutdown of USAid has stiffed aid groups and businesses that had contracts with it of billions of dollars.The shutdown has left many USAid staffers and contractors and their families still overseas, many of them awaiting US-paid back payments and travel expenses back home. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump policies could fuel illicit drug trade despite vow to curb fentanyl

      by

      Donald Trump’s policies could leave the US more vulnerable to dangerous synthetic drug trafficking from abroad, even as the administration has vowed to stop fentanyl from entering the country, former government officials say.This week, Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, ostensibly as a tactic to stem the flow of illicit drugs into the US.Jim Crotty, the former Drug Enforcement Administration deputy chief of staff, called the approach “coercive” and said it has the potential to backfire. Federal funding cuts could also leave US borders more insecure, according to Enrique Roig, a former Department of State official who oversaw Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) portfolios and who has also worked with USAid.US overdose deaths began to decrease significantly for the first time in 2023, after rising for decades. But Crotty notes this progress is fragile.“We’re seeing this decrease in overdose deaths and everyone’s still trying to suss out exactly why. I don’t think now is the time that we want to stop any of those existing efforts because we know that at least some, or a combination of them, have been working,” Crotty said.Roig agreed: “All this has to be working together in concert.”Federal funding cuts could put the US behind when it comes to drug detection technology. The global drug supply has increasingly shifted towards highly potent synthetic substances such as fentanyl and newly emerging nitazenes. Often, these drugs arrive in the US in the form of powders or precursor chemicals that take up minimal space, and are difficult to detect by odor.Roig says advanced drug detection technology is therefore vital, but Trump’s federal funding and staff cuts mean less money for the latest technology and equipment, and fewer people to install it.Ram Ben Tzion, the CEO of Publican, which provides drug detection technology to government agencies outside the US, says cutting-edge methods detect suspicious shipments even before they get to the border. Publican uses large language models to flag shipments that “don’t make sense” and are likely to contain illicit substances. For example, his company once found fentanyl precursors in a shipment to a residential address in California. The shipment claimed to contain fashion items, but came from a Chinese construction company.Similarly, the UN Container Control Programme, which has historically received state department funding, helps authorities flag suspicious shipments before they reach their destination. This program has helped authorities around the world seize hundreds of tonnes of illicit drugs each year. Roig says federal funding cuts have stalled CCP’s implementation in Mexico, even though it’s a primary security target for Trump.Some of Trump’s measures are more showy than they are constructive, Crotty and Roig said. The designation of certain cartels as terrorist organizations “doesn’t do much of anything”.It’s symbolic, says Crotty, given that they were already designated transnational criminal organizations. Other measures are a harmful waste of money, according to Roig. Just this week, for instance, the administration suspended the use of military planes to deport immigrants, including those accused of drug related crimes, due to the extravagant cost.Roig says this measure was completely unnecessary, as “Ice already has its own fleet of airplanes” that are much cheaper.Crotty is concerned the aggression could backfire.“The Mexican people are protective of their culture and their sovereignty. If you push them too hard, could it do more harm than good?” he said.Mexico sent 10,000 troops to its US border to cooperate with Trump’s demands, but Crotty says “while in a vacuum that sounds like a whole lot”, Mexico’s border is vast, and drugs are often transported in “minute quantities”. So, the US needs Mexico’s cooperation when it comes to intelligence – otherwise “you’re not going to find the proverbial needle in the haystack”, Crotty said.Roig said that “it’s important that we do this in cooperation with Mexico and not alienate them,” adding that Trump’s aggressive stance toward China could harm the Biden administration’s progress negotiating with the Chinese government to cooperate on counternarcotics initiatives.Massive USAid cuts also threaten programs intended to curb the “root causes” of the drug trade, says Roig. Some USAid-funded programs simultaneously tackled drug smuggling and another one of Trump’s key issues, migration – as cartels that traffic drugs also traffic people.When Roig worked with USAid, he says he spent a lot of time on “community violence prevention efforts”, including programs to keep young people from joining international crime organizations and cartels. (Notably, the Trump administration has purged many websites describing USAid programs.)If the drug supply does increase, it could mean US overdoses begin to rise again as well. But Crotty is worried we won’t even know if that happens. Layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could leave fewer people to track overdose deaths, and Trump’s attack on government data sharing could keep everyone in the dark.“​​ CDC maintains the overdose death dashboard. A lot of that stuff is data driven. Are they still going to have access to the data?” he said.The Guardian contacted INL and UNODC for comment. More

    • 213 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      I lost my job at USAid. It’s devastating – but I still have hope | Christian Smith

      by

      When we rang in the New Year, I wasn’t remotely expecting politics to collide with my career, my family and me. In a matter of weeks, I had lost my job, my father and, I felt, my country.I spent a dozen years as a program officer for USAid, serving in countries in South America, Africa and Asia with my family. I loved my job working with governments and NGOs to improve the lives of those in need. Doing good and doing well, we said. I was helping to build an information system to improve aid transparency and efficiency when sudden news arrived.At 5pm on a Friday, we received an email saying our particular contract had been shut down. In all, 10,000 professionals were dismissed from their jobs, while Elon Musk called us a criminal organization and its staff – me included – a “ball of worms”. The wrecking had begun.At USAid headquarters, administrative assistants were ordered to take down all the pictures of the many people the agency helps around the world, as if it had been something shameful. Only clocks were left on the walls. More cravenly, the administration blocked access to the wall of names honoring those who had given their lives to the cause. Trump officials canceled USAid’s building contract and handed it over to US Customs and Border Protection.The same clocks on the walls that had once marked time over Americans helping people in need overseas may now mark time over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents deporting people to those countries and others.The Trump administration is abandoning millions of people around the world and cutting off life-saving services. We are losing goodwill and influence – diplomatic, economic and moral. A good sign that closing USAid was a mistake: China is already moving in to fill the void, and strongly rightwing leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán are applauding.The destruction is also almost certainly unconstitutional in a number of ways, and aspects continue to be reviewed, blocked or upheld by courts lagging behind the speed at which laws are being broken. A showdown on the reach of executive power has begun.These changes hit me very close to home. A significant number of my family are conservatives who voted for Trump, fueled by two decades of misinformation promoting hate and anger. Despite this, in the interests of our family integrity, we have learned to talk to one another respectfully. We avoid topics related to politics and focus on our love for each other, jigsaw puzzles and American football (until even that became “woke”).Blindsided at work, I was next blindsided at home. Two days after USAid was lost, my father died unexpectedly. Thankfully, my dad and I had been able to say we loved each other before he died. The kids and I flew out and we spent a beautiful week together with the family grieving his loss.However, in a strange moment at the end of the week, my mother told me that I shouldn’t talk about USAid because I didn’t know what I was talking about (as if I had no idea about the organization where I had spent my career). Armed with details from her trusted websites, she informed me that USAid was performing sex changes on children and funding terrorist groups. We defused the moment, but it demonstrated how unchecked deception fomented by wealthy interests so gravely distorts people’s views.Obviously, all of these sudden losses have given me pause to reflect.Despite some people’s attempts to reshape the US and its place in the world, we have not seen the end of American generosity. Humans are successful because we cooperate. We have obligations to each other as living beings. We also know that we can’t make ideas go away, and the best ones – like kindness and caring for others – are actually what bind us.The dismantling of USAid as an institution does not mean that the US’s generosity of spirit has also been eradicated. USAid was a longstanding independent agency established by John F Kennedy, receiving consistent bipartisan support because it advanced America’s foreign policy objectives by helping others.Such values have not disappeared. We can be certain that, in one form or another, US aid will return.

      Christian Smith is an American citizen and former USAid officer who lives between Dublin and Spain More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Little agency that could’ cheered for act of resistance against Trump and Musk

      by

      Members of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) unit were barred from entering a small, independent federal agency promoting economic development in Africa on Wednesday after a tense standoff with federal staff they had been sent to fire.Workers at the US African Development Foundation (USADF), which Donald Trump has ordered to be closed, refused to allow Doge operatives to enter after they arrived at its Washington headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. But the Doge team returned on Thursday, accompanied by agents with the US Marshals Service, and Peter Marocco, the acting director of the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development, according to a government official familiar with the situation. This time, they were able to gain access to the building, the official said, and no staff were present.Scores of legal challenges have been lodged against the sweeping project to upend the government bureaucracy, producing a spate of court rulings declaring the halting of aid illegal and ordering the reinstatement of fired federal workers.In Wednesday’s episode, workers instructed a security guard at USADF’s headquarters to deny the Doge team access when they arrived with Marocco. Trump is trying to install him in a similar role at USADF.Staff cited a letter sent by the agency’s chair, Ward Brehm, who was not present at the time, to a Doge subordinate the previous day making clear that his team would not be allowed to access the agency’s offices in his absence.“In my absence, I have specifically instructed the staff of USADF to adhere to our rules and procedure of not allowing any meetings of this type without my presence,” he wrote, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by the Guardian.Brehm also declined to cooperate with Marocco unless he was officially appointed to the agency’s board.“I will look forward to working with Mr Marocco after such time that he is nominated for a seat on the board and his nomination is confirmed by the Senate,” Brehm wrote.“Until these legal requirements are met, Mr Marocco does not hold any position or office with USADF, and he may not speak or act on the foundation’s behalf.”About 30 workers were in the building when Marocco arrived with a Doge team – described as young men wearing backpacks – intent on carrying out firings based on an executive order issued by Trump on 19 February, the Washington Post reported.The standoff, led by one of the smallest government agencies, with only about 50 employees, has been cheered by government officials as a mighty act of resistance against Trump and Musk’s war on the federal bureaucracy.“This is the little agency that could,” the official said.Trump’s order declared USADF and three other agencies – the Presidio Trust, the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) and the United States Institute of Peace – as “unnecessary” and subject to elimination.Wednesday’s standoff followed a similar exchange at the IAF’s headquarters earlier this week.The workers’ defiant stand comes after Democrats publicly condemned the attempted dismantling of the agency as illegal.“Any attempt to unilaterally dismantle the USADF through executive action violates the law and exceeds the constitutional limits of executive authority,” Democratic members of the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee wrote in a 24 February letter to Trump.Democrats have argued that Doge lacks the authority to eliminate an independent entity created by Congress, and that attempts to install Marocco as the acting chair of USADF and IAF are unlawful.The official familiar with the situation said that unlike other federal agencies such as USAid, USADF is a “congressionally chartered corporation” operated by a board of directors whose members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.“It’s expressed in the statute that you can’t dissolve ADF except by an act of Congress,” the official said. “The president [of ADF] doesn’t take orders from anyone except for the board. The president [of ADF] isn’t even authorized to take orders from the president of the United States.”The agency, created by Congress in 1980 to support small businesses and grassroots organisations serving marginalised communities in Africa, has long enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Between 2019 and 2023, it handed out grants worth about $141m to 1,050 community enterprises serving 6.2 million people. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Hundreds of US diplomats decry dismantling of USAid in letter to Rubio

      by

      Hundreds of diplomats at the state department and US Agency for International Development have written to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, protesting against the dismantling of USAid, saying it undermines US leadership and security and leaves power vacuums for China and Russia to fill.In a cable expected to be filed with the department’s internal “dissent channel”, which allows diplomats to raise concerns about policy anonymously, the diplomats said the Trump administration’s 20 January freeze on almost all foreign aid also endangers American diplomats and forces overseas while putting at risk the lives of millions abroad that depend on US assistance.More than 700 people have signed on to the letter, a US official speaking on the condition of anonymity said.“The decision to freeze and terminate foreign aid contracts and assistance awards without any meaningful review jeopardizes our partnerships with key allies, erodes trust, and creates openings for adversaries to expand their influence,” said the cable, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.The Republican president, pursuing what he has called an “America first” agenda, ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid on his 20 January return to office. The order halted USAid operations around the world, jeopardizing delivery of life-saving food and medical aid, and throwing global humanitarian relief efforts into chaos.“The freeze on life-saving aid has already caused irreparable harm and suffering to millions of people around the world,” the letter said, adding that despite statements on waivers being issued for life-saving programs, the funding remained shut.The president tasked billionaire and adviser Elon Musk with dismantling USAid as part of an unprecedented push to shrink the federal government over what both say is wasteful spending and abuse of funds.“Foreign assistance is not charity. Instead, it is a strategic tool that stabilizes regions, prevents conflict, and advances US interests,” the letter said.A state department spokesperson, when asked about the cable, said: “We do not comment on leaked internal communication.”In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $72bn of aid worldwide, on everything from women’s health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/Aids treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work.Upon evaluating 6,200 multiyear awards, the administration decided to eliminate nearly 5,800 of them worth $54bn in value, a 92% reduction, according to a state department spokesperson. USAid fired or put on administrative leave thousands of staff and contractors.The cable said the government’s failure to pay outstanding invoices to contractors and implementing partners has severe economic repercussions.“The resulting financial strain not only undermines confidence in the US government as a reliable partner, it also weakens domestic economic growth at a time of mounting global competition,” the cable said.Organizations and companies that contract with USAid last month sued the administration, calling the dismantling of the agency unlawful and saying funding had been cut off for existing contracts, including hundreds of millions of dollars for work that was already done.The US supreme court declined on Wednesday to let the administration withhold payments to foreign aid organizations for work they had already performed for the government, upholding a district judge’s order that called on the administration to promptly release payments to contractors. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Social Security Administration could layoff up to 50% of its workforce, source says – live

      by

      The Social Security Administration is expected to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, the Associated Press reported.The workforce reduction could be as high as 50%, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It’s unclear how the layoffs will directly impact benefits of the 72.5 million Social Security beneficiaries, which include retirees and children who receive retirement and disability benefits.Advocates and Democratic lawmakers warn that layoffs will reduce the agency’s ability to serve recipients in a timely manner.King Charles invites Donald Trump for unprecedented second state visit to UKKing Charles has invited Donald Trump to make an unprecedented second state visit to the UK in a letter handed to the US president by Keir Starmer.Queen Elizabeth II hosted Trump on a state visit in 2019. Precedent for second-term US presidents who have already made a state visit is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.Trump received the invitation during a meeting at the White House on Thursday, with Starmer presenting the letter from the king.In the letter, which Trump showed to the cameras in the Oval Office, Charles suggested he and Trump could meet beforehand at Dumfries House or Balmoral, which are near Trump’s golf courses in Scotland, to discuss the plans for the much grander visit.The letter, partially obscured by Trump’s hand, read: “I can only say that it would be … pleasure to extend that invitation once again, in the hope that you … some stage be visiting Turnberry and a detour to a relatively near neighbour might not cause you too much inconvenience. An alternative might perhaps be for you to visit Balmoral.“There is much on both estates which I think you might find interesting, and enjoy – particularly as my foundation at Dumfries House provides hospitality skills-training for young people who often end up as staff on your own establishments!”The letter continued: “Quite apart from this presenting an opportunity to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual interest, it would also offer a valuable chance to plan a historic second state visit to the United Kingdom.“As you will know this is unprecedented by a US President. That is why I would find it helpful for us to be able to discuss, together, a range of options for location and programme content.Read the full story:The Social Security Administration is expected to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, the Associated Press reported.The workforce reduction could be as high as 50%, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It’s unclear how the layoffs will directly impact benefits of the 72.5 million Social Security beneficiaries, which include retirees and children who receive retirement and disability benefits.Advocates and Democratic lawmakers warn that layoffs will reduce the agency’s ability to serve recipients in a timely manner.A federal judge has ordered Trump administration officials involved in Elon Musk’s “opaque” department of government efficiency (Doge) to testify under oath in a lawsuit regarding the agency’s access to sensitive government databases.US District Judge John Bates ruled on Thursday that limited questioning of officials connected to Doge could help clarify the group’s activities and assess whether it poses the data security risks that government employees have raised concerns about.The judge’s order allows unions and liberal groups suing the agency to depose four officials: one from Doge’s White House headquarters and one each from the labor department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Doge’s aggressive push to streamline bureaucracy has triggered over a dozen lawsuits, and this order marks the first time that people involved in the project will be required to answer questions from lawyers outside the government.Here’s where the day stands so far:

      Donald Trump suggested Vladimir Putin can be trusted in the peace talks with Ukraine because “we had to go through the Russian hoax together”. “I’ve known him for a long time now, and I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word,” Trump said during his Oval Office meeting with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister. For more updates from Trump’s press conference with Starmer, follow the UK politics live blog.

      Trump announced he would move forward with imposing 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada next week, after he initially delayed that policy by one month. In a post on Truth Social, Trump blamed Mexico and Canada for allowing illegal drugs to flow into the US, writing: “We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled.”

      The top Democrat on the Senate finance committee warned that Trump’s tariffs threats are “driving the US economy straight into a wall”. “Slapping tariffs on everything Americans buy from Canada, Mexico, and China will mean higher prices on groceries, gas and cars, with fewer jobs and lower pay when our closest trading partners respond to Trump’s trade war by buying fewer American products,” senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, said in a statement.

      Democrats on the Senate foreign relations committee slammed the Trump administration over a decision to eliminate as much as 90% of USAid’s foreign aid contracts. “It is clear that the Trump Administration’s foreign assistance ‘review’ was not a serious effort or attempt at reform but rather a pretext to dismantle decades of US investment that makes America safer, stronger and more prosperous,” the Democrats said in a joint statement.
      The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.Senator Ruben Gallego, a freshman Democrat of Arizona, has introduced a resolution condemning the Trump administration’s rejection of a United Nations resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.On Monday, the US joined Russia, Belarus and North Korea in voting against the EU-Ukrainian resolution, which was intrdouced to coincide with the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.“Let’s be clear on this: this is a war that Russia started. Ukraine did not ask for it. They did not ask to go to war with a nuclear superpower, and they did not ask for their cities to be reduced to rubble,” Gallego said in a speech today on the Senate floor.“They didn’t ask for their children to be displaced and families to be torn apart. If Ukraine had its way, this war would have ended years ago.”He warned that the US position on the UN resolution “puts us on the same side as Russia and North Korea,” adding, “That’s not just embarrassing, it is dangerous.”Donald Trump made some eyebrow-raising comments about Russia during his Oval Office meeting with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, just a few moments ago.Trump suggested that Vladimir Putin could be trusted to follow through on the terms of any peace agreement signed with Ukraine, saying he expected the Russian leader to “keep his word”.“I’ve spoken to him. I’ve known him for a long time now,” Trump said.“You know we had to go through the Russian hoax together [the claim that Russia colluded with Trump to rig the 2016 election]. That was not a good thing …“I’ve known him for a long time now, and I don’t believe he’s going to violate his word.”For more updates and analysis from Trump’s press conference with Starmer, which is expected to get underway soon, follow the Guardian’s UK politics live blog:Kash Patel, the controversial new FBI director, has proposed teaming up with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a way to improve agents’ physical fitness, ABC News reported.Patel reportedly floated the potential collaboration on teleconference Wednesday with the heads of the FBI’s 55 field offices. Dana White, the CEO and founder of the mixed-martial arts entertainment company, is a prominent Trump supporter and major booster of his re-election campaign.Kash’s appointment has rattled the agency, amid widespread concern that he would use the historically independent bureau to pursue Trump’s political opponents – something he declined to rule out in his confirmation hearing.Asked about self-styled “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, flying to the US, reportedly after the US urged Romania to lift the travel ban that was preventing them from leaving the country, Trump said he “doesn’t know anything about it”.The pair, who are charged with human trafficking in Romania, arrived in Florida from Romania on Thursday by private jet, after prosecutors suspended their travel ban and a court lifted a precautionary seizure on some of their assets. The brothers, are staunch Trump supporters.On Thursday, Ron DeSantis, the state’s Republican governor, said: “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct in the air.”The Tate brothers were arrested in Romania in 2022 and face trial on charges of rape, sex with a minor, people trafficking and money laundering.Attending the anti-war protest in solidarity with Barnard and Columbia students is Raymond Lotta, a spokesperson for Revolutionary Books in Harlem.“We are here specifically today because we are standing in solidarity with the students here at Barona and Columbia who are being punished severely for standing in support of the Palestinian people and calling out this university for being complicit in war crimes, and now two students have been expelled…they must be reinstated. This is a just and a righteous demand,” Lotta said.He added: “And we are here to stand in solidarity and also to help people to understand that we’re now fighting in a new situation with Trump MAGA fascism in power and their agenda is horrific. I mean, across the board, you know, terrorizing and rounding up immigrants, attempting to erase LGBTQ people. This is fascism and, you know, they are attempting to use the military to suppress protest in dissent, and the struggle here is a struggle that has inspired students across the country.”The protesters have issued a list of four demands to Barnard president Laura Rosenbury.The demands stated are: “Immediate reversal of the two Barnard students’ expulsions…Amnesty for all student students disciplined for pro-Palestine, action or thought…a public meeting with Dean Leslie Grinage, and president Laura Rosenbery and abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process and complete transparency for current past and future disciplinary proceedings.”“Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will rest,” the students chant.“Barnard College go to hell,” others yell before going into, “1, we are the students! 2, we won’t stop fighting! 3, we want divestment now now now!”NYPD have set up more barricades outside Barnard as a verbal altercation between the student protestors and counter protestors broke out with both sides yelling at each other.Elon Musk again criticized Verizon as the Federal Aviation Administration reportedly considers canceling a $2.4bn contract with the telecommunications company. On deck to supplant Verizon: The tech mogul’s own satellite internet company, Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX.In a post on his X social media platform, Musk said the “Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly”.Musk made the comment in a repost of a tweet linking to the Washington Post’s report that the FAA was “close to canceling” Verizon’s contract in favor of Starlink, setting up a major conflict-of-interest test for the administration as Musk leads its cost-cutting effort. Staff with Musk’s Doge have already infiltrated the aviation agency, according to multiple reports.“The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk,” Musk said on X. “The Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity. The situation is extremely dire.”On X, Musk said a “total overhaul” of the air traffic control system was needed, an assessment many at the agency would agree with. Handing the contract to Starlink, however, would compound existing conflicts of interest involving SpaceX and the FAA.The Guardian’s Maya Yang is at New York’s Barnard University, where students wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestine are gathered outside on the campus, chanting a series of anti-war slogans amid a heavy New York police department (NYPD) presence.“Free, free Palestine!” the students chant as well as some hold up handwritten signs that read: “No more Zionist occupation”‘and “Amnesty now.”Around 100 or so students appear gathered outside the gated campus of Barnard, where only students and faculty with ID cards are allowed in.Around eight student counter-protestors have gathered across from the Barnard and Columbia students protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza.One student, with a shirt that says “Fuck Hamas, I stand with Israel” started playing Israeli music with others waving an Israeli and an IDF flag. Another student wore a white hoodie with the words: “Columbia University students supporting Israel.”Since Hamas’s 7 October attacks which killed 1,200 Israelis and took over 200 survivors hostage, Israeli forces have waged a deadly war on Gaza, killing over 48,000 Palestinians while forcibly displacing nearly 2 million survivors amid severe shortages in food, fuel and medical supplies due to Israeli aid restrictions. More