Citizen Cartwright

The fight over humanitarian aid agency USAID

Secretary of State Marco Rubio notified lawmakers on Monday that he'll work with Congress to reorganize the U.S. Agency for International Development, reports The Wall Street Journal, stepping back from the closure of the agency Elon Musk envisioned and said President Trump agreed to.

 

An email to USAID employees on Monday morning had said “Agency leadership” made the decision to close the headquarters of the independent agency. The message said that replies should be directed to an email address that appears to be associated with Gavin Kliger, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as a special adviser to the director of the Office of Personnel Management and who works for DOGE, according to the WSJ.

 

By the way, Wired says it’s identified "six young men — all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records — who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project.”

 

Kliger attended the University of California at Berkeley until 2020, Wired says.

 

Some Democratic lawmakers tried on Monday to enter the USAID headquarters. They were blocked by officers from even entering the lobby, and Rubio said he was the acting administrator of the agency despite it being an independent body for six decades.

 

The Democrats say court challenges are underway and that they'll block approval of Trump’s State Department nominations until the shutdown is reversed. 

 

The United States is the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, and the moves have upended decades of U.S. policy that put humanitarian, development and security assistance in the center of efforts to build alliances and counter China and Russia, says The Associated Press. 

 

Trump, Musk and Republicans in Congress have made the U.S. foreign assistance program a special target, accusing it of waste and advancing liberal social programs, AP says.

 

A New York Times article says funding from USAID "has been essential in transporting lifesaving treatments worldwide.”

 

For example, medical supplies, including drugs to stop hemorrhages in pregnant women and rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea in toddlers, can't reach villages in Zambia because the trucking companies transporting them were paid through a suspended supply project of USAID.

 

And there’s nobody to take custody of millions of dollars’ worth of supplies for oxygen systems, purchased for programs funded by USAID that support health clinics in some of the world’s poorest countries, that are scheduled to reach ports in coming days.

 

I mentioned last week that Americans tend to overestimate the share of the federal budget that's spent on foreign aid, citing an article from Brookings. 

 

AP cites surveys from the Kaiser Family Foundation that have have found that on average, Americans say spending on foreign aid makes up 31 percent of the federal budget rather than the actual 1 percent or less.

Good news in 2024

Fix the News’ year-end roundup has 86 examples of good news in global health, conservation, living standards, energy, human rights, and science and tech.

 

No matter how busy you may be, I hope you’ll at least have time to scroll through this issue to experience the abundance of good will and good work that’s improving the lives of our human family in so many ways.

Note to readers

The past weeks have been so jammed with major news that writing this blog has taken an exceptional amount of my time and emotional energy. So I’m going to take next week off to rebalance. 

 

I’ve been sorry we’ve missed our fixes of good news from Fix the News. To catch up:

 

July 26

Good news on AIDS, human rights in South Korea, Canada's largest marine protected area

 

July 12

Capital punishment, mental health in Rwanda, air pollution in Europe 

 

July 5

Global emotions, poverty in Indonesia, bluefin tuna

Good news on global poverty, child nutrition, renewables in China

I didn't run the usual good news from our Australian friends at Future Crunch last Friday because it seemed important to run Robert Kagan’s Washington Post essay on what bad news another Trump term would be for U.S. democracy. And thus bad news for the planet as a whole.

 

So let’s take a look at last week’s edition of Future Crunch now.

 

— Gapminder, the Swedish foundation established by Hans Rosling, a physician/statistician who was considered a top global thinker, says that two decades ago, a quarter of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. By 2022, 8.3 percent of the world’s people lived in extreme poverty (on less than $2.15 a day).

 

— Since 2000, global malnutrition in children under age 5 has declined by one-third, and today, there are 60 million fewer undernourished children, UNICEF reports.

 

— China is working on wind and solar energy projects that are projected to nearly equal the size of the entire power network — including coal plants and nuclear reactors — in India, the world’s third-largest system, says Bloomberg. (The article is "one of the best pieces of graphical reporting we've ever seen,” Future Crunch says.)

What the good-news people have to say about ‘a bad week for humanity’

This week’s edition of Future Crunch begins with this:

 

"The news is a lot right now. Israel is still reeling from the deadliest single day in its 75-year history, an indiscriminate massacre that killed over a thousand civilians in the most brutal manner imaginable. Two million people are now under siege in Gaza without food, water, medicine or power, and over a thousand are already dead. The horror of it all is compounded by the collective fear of what might yet be to come. Cynicism is easy because you're never wrong. If you keep on insisting the world is an awful place, and that it's only going to get worse, eventually a week like this comes along and proves you right. 

"There was talk of peace in recent months, hope that something was changing. Overnight, that's been replaced by despair, and the familiar moral darkness that seems to hang so heavily over this part of the world. In the choice between barbarism and civilization nobody should waffle, but what the past few days have also revealed is that a lot of people will mourn for dead Israeli civilians but not dead Palestinian ones, and a lot of people will mourn for dead Palestinian civilians but not dead Israeli ones. What has happened to our collective humanity?

"In times like this it feels strange to be writing a newsletter that celebrates progress. Disrespectful even. This is not a kumbaya though. Our aim isn't to say 'Look over here! There's good stuff too!’ Suffering isn't relative, there's no Benthamesque, cosmic scale weighing things up and pronouncing its verdict on world events. There are moments when the world feels like it hangs by a thread. This is one of them. We're feeling it intensely too, that sense of worry and fear. 

 

"This week, our goal is just to stop you from going numb. The global media is chasing ambulances right now, and at some point it's going to become too much. When you feel that, try to remember there's a big planet out there, and a lot of other stories surrounding the Israel-Gaza one. People in power on both sides want war. But they don’t speak for all. What we can do is keep showing up with our attention and our humanity. Don't switch off, stay with it. Here are some other stories that might make that easier.”

 

I’m running Future Crunch today instead of our usual Friday because I want to share something else with you tomorrow about an approach to our common humanity.

 

Among the items in this Future Crunch:

 

— Global poverty reduction is back on track after three years lost to the pandemic. The World Bank estimates that for 2023, 691 million people — 8.6 percent of the global population — are living in extreme poverty. That's the lowest proportion in history, Future Crunch says. 

 

— New global rules for the safe handling of chemicals were adopted at a United Nations conference in Germany on Sept. 30. The Global Framework on Chemicals sets out 28 concrete targets and guidelines for key sectors from production to waste. These include preventing illegal trafficking of chemicals and waste, introducing national laws and phasing out by 2035 highly dangerous pesticides in agriculture, says Germany’s international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.

 

— The North American subspecies of the monarch butterfly has been upgraded from “endangered” to “vulnerable,” reports Science. The change follows a researcher’s challenge to existing population models, concluding that though the insect’s population had fallen in Mexico, it had increased in other places and overall is in fact “doing really well.” 

Good news on global water access, income, conservation

Highlights from the July 12 issue of Future Crunch:

 

"Humanity has made astonishing progress on access to water, sanitation and hygiene in this century,” Future Crunch says, citing World Health Organization data. "Between 2000 and 2022, 2.1 billion people gained access to safe drinking water, 2.5 billion gained access to safely managed sanitation, the number of people using unimproved facilities has been halved, from 1.1 billion to 545 million, and the number practicing open defecation has fallen by more than two thirds, from 1.3 billion to 419 million.” 

 

The World Bank categorizes the world's economies into four income groups: high, upper-middle, lower-middle and low. Twenty years ago, 120 nations were classified as either low or lower-middle in income. The latest categorizations show that just 80 countries now are in those categories. 

 

The Progress Network has a roundup of all the 'animal comeback' stories from the first six months of 2023, "proving that amidst all of the genuinely worrying environmental news, recovery is an ongoing, global project, and we keep getting better at it,” says Future Crunch.

Good news on human morality, health, LGBTQI+ rights

I continue to be so grateful for the more-or-less weekly roundup of good news from around the world published by our Australian friends at Future Crunch. Among the items in this week’s edition:

 

— We've talked before about humans' negativity bias. “Our modern day, in which we can neither bear our immoralities nor face the remedies needed to cure them,” was lamented more than 2,000 years ago by the historian Livy.

 

But in the journal Nature, Adam Mastroianni of Columbia and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard provide evidence that the perception of moral decline is an illusion.

 

— The prevalence of stunting among the world's children (low height-for-age because of chronic or recurrent undernutrition) fell from 33 percent in 2000 to 22.3 percent in 2022, according to the UN agency UNICEF. This means 56.1 million fewer children suffer from stunting than at the turn of this century.

 

— Twenty countries have strengthened LGBTQI+ rights in the past year, ranging from gender identity and same-sex marriage to protection from discrimination, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Homeless seniors

The number of Americans 65 or older grew by more than a third from 2010 to 2020 — the fastest rate of any decade in 130 years, according to data from the 2020 census that was released Thursday.

 

And nearly a quarter of a million people 55 or older are estimated by the government to have been homeless during at least part of 2019, the most recent reliable federal count available. 

 

They represent a particularly vulnerable segment of the 70 million Americans born after World War II in the baby boom generation, the youngest of whom turn 59 this year, The Washington Post reports.

 

Advocates for the homeless in many big cities say they've seen a spike in the number of elderly homeless, who have unique health and housing needs. Some communities are racing to come up with novel solutions, including establishing senior shelters and hiring specially trained staff.

“It’s just a catastrophe. This is the fastest-growing group of people who are homeless,” says Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine and a vulnerable populations researcher at the University of California at San Francisco.

 

Dennis Culhane, a professor and social science researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says the population of homeless seniors 65 and older will double or even triple 2017 levels in some places before peaking around 2030.

 

The largest shelter provider in Arizona, Central Arizona Shelter Services, is rushing to open an over-55 shelter in a former Phoenix hotel this summer with private rooms and medical and social services tailored for old people. The facility will open with 40 beds and eventually reach a capacity of 170, but that will barely begin to address the problem. CASS says it served 1,717 older adults in 2022, an increase of 43 percent in one year.

In Orange County, Calif., a Medicaid plan is creating a 119-bed, first-of-its-kind unit that essentially will serve as an assisted-living facility exclusively for homeless people, says Kelly Bruno-Nelson, executive director for the plan, CalOptima Health.

A combination of factors is to blame for the rising problem. People in the second half of the baby boom, who came of age during recessions in the 1970s and 1980s, face distinct economic disadvantages, Culhane says. Housing costs in many cities are soaring. The nation’s system of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities isn't equipped to handle the needs of homeless people, who suffer from high rates of substance abuse and mental illness.

And living on the street ravages the human body, street doctors and advocates say. Homeless people contract chronic diseases and other geriatric problems much earlier than average. Long waits for housing and a lack of specialized care expose them to a continued onslaught on their health.

After treatment for an acute illness, hospitals often discharge homeless patients, who wind up back in shelters or even back into their sidewalk tents and makeshift lean-tos, in what health practitioners in Phoenix call “treat-and-street.”

 

Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, will only pay for a long-term nursing home or assisted living bed if a person is unable to care for themselves. Many elderly homeless people aren't debilitated enough to meet that criteria.

“That’s where the gap in the system is,” says Regan Smith, long-term care ombudsman program director in Maricopa County, Ariz.

 

A pinball effect takes hold, according to health-care providers, shelter operators and advocates. Homeless people bounce from a homeless shelter to a hospital, then to a nursing home for a short-term recuperation stay. Once the short-term stay ends, nursing homes must decide if the person is infirm enough to qualify for long-term care. If the answer is no, they have to leave the nursing home, starting the cycle over again.

"Respite centers" now number about 150 around the nation, up from 80 in 2016, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. They’re often funded at least in part by local hospitals that want to avoid discharging homeless people back onto the streets. They're designed to help homeless people recuperate for a few weeks after a health crisis. But with nowhere else to go, the elderly tend to stay far longer.

“Medical respite was not intended to be palliative care, hospice care, end-of-life care,” says Kushel, “yet some respite programs are starting to provide that service because there is nowhere else for these folks to go.”

 

Worrisome to Jeff Olivet, who leads the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, is when the public responds to homelessness with “anger” and “vitriol” instead of seeking “thoughtful, compassionate solutions.”​

​To be part of the solution, he has four suggestions:​
1. Educate yourself on the the issue.​
2. Advocate at all government levels of government for “adequate resources to address this problem.”​
3. Donate to organizations “doing good workaround solutions to homelessness.”​
4. Volunteer for these groups.​​

AP: Racial health disparities harming African Americans

"From birth to death, Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared to their white counterparts. They have higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, higher incidence of asthma during childhood, more difficulty treating mental illness as teens, and higher rates of high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s disease and other illness as adults,” says The Associated Press, which spent a year examining the issue.

 

Key takeaways:

 

— African American women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And African American babies are more likely to die, and far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that can follow them throughout their lives.

 

Multiple factors contribute to these disparities, according to the CDC and advocacy groups, such as underlying health conditions. But more doctors and experts point to the role of structural racism that's created inequitable access to health care, implicit bias and discriminatory care.

 

— More than 12 percent of African American children nationwide have asthma, compared with 5 percent of white children.

 

With asthma, especially for children, where you live makes all the difference, says AP. And where you live often depends on your race. 

 

Across America, nearly 4 in 10 African American children live in areas with poor environmental and health conditions compared to 1 in 10 white children, AP says.

 

– The United States has a shortage of mental health providers who understand the roles that racial identity and racism play in shaping young African Americans' mental health. Between 1991 and 2019, African American adolescents had the highest increase of any group in suicide attempts, at nearly 80 percent.

 

— About 56 percent of African American adults have high blood pressure, compared to 48 percent of white adults. 

 

Only 32 percent of white adults with high blood pressure have their condition under control with medication, but the level for African Americans is even lower, at 25 percent.

 

Among white people, the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and disease is projected to decrease over time, says AP. Yet significant increases are projected among people of color, especially African Americans and Latinos.

 

— About 14 percent of African Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s, compared with 10 percent of white Americans, according to the CDC. The trauma of experiencing racism is believed to be a contributing factor, AP says.

'Why America isn’t that awful'

That’s the subheadline of this week’s edition of Australia’s “good news” newsletter Future Crunch.

 

Ha, ha, ha. To quote a friend of mine from India, that subhed “cracks me down.”

 

It reminds me of the Dutch fiancé of another friend. When I asked her if she and her husband might at some point live in the United States, she said, “Oh, no, you can’t raise children there!”

 

Future Crunch's item on us says: "Yes, everything in America is awful, except for the fact that inequality is falling; unemployment is at its lowest since WW2 (and so is racial disparity in hiring); it's still the world’s richest, most productive and most innovative economy; poverty and uninsured rates are at their lowest levels in history; Millennials are back on track, and GenZ are blowing past other generations in saving for retirement.”

 

Enjoy your weekend, my fellow Americans, in our livable unlivable conditions!