logo
Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn't True.

Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn't True.

New York Times19-03-2025

By Nicholas Kristof
Produced by Derek Arthur
What does it look like when some of the world's richest men withdraw assistance for the world's poorest women and children? After Elon Musk claimed no one had died from cuts to American foreign aid spending, the Opinion writer Nicholas Kristof traveled to South Sudan to see the impact for himself. In this episode, he shares how millions of people now face death and starvation and why Americans — including those who believe in 'America First' — should care.
Read Kristof's interactive essay with photos and charts at nytimes.com/opinion.
(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)
Thoughts? Email us at theopinions@nytimes.com.
This episode of 'The Opinions' was produced by Derek Arthur. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Navy ordered to rename USNS Harvey Milk in deliberate Pride Month move
Navy ordered to rename USNS Harvey Milk in deliberate Pride Month move

Yahoo

time16 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Navy ordered to rename USNS Harvey Milk in deliberate Pride Month move

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the U.S. Navy to rename a ship honoring late LGBTQ rights hero Harvey Milk — in a move intentionally set to coincide with Pride Month. According to a memo from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy reviewed by officials have already drawn up a plan for the USNS Harvey Milk to be renamed. The ship is a John Lewis-class oiler, part of a series of vessels named after civil rights leaders and activists. While its new name has yet to be announced, Navy Secretary John Phelan and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth are expected to unveil the change on June 13, according to the memo. An unnamed defense official confirmed to the decision to make the announcement in June was deliberate. The move was slammed by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a 'shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.' Milk, who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, made history as California's first openly gay elected official. He was assassinated inside San Francisco City Hall on Nov. 27, 1978 — just months after helping pass a landmark city ordinance banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. Before his short-lived career in public office, the trailblazing LGBTQ+ rights leader also served as a diving officer in the Navy, but resigned with the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1955 after being questioned about his sexual orientation. In late 2016, the Navy announced it would name a ship after the slain LGBTQ icon. Construction began in late 2019 and, two years later, Navy Veteran Paula Neira christened the Navy's USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO 206) in a ceremony in San Diego Bay attended by state and local leaders. 'Harvey fought for the dignity and worth of every person,' Pelosi, who represents California's 11th congressional district, which includes most of San Francisco, said in a statement Tuesday. 'In San Francisco, we take great pride that our Harvey's name adorns a mighty ship among a new class of Navy vessels — named for the conscience of the Congress, John Lewis — which honors titans in the fight for freedom,' Pelosi said. 'As the rest of us are celebrating the joy of Pride Month, it is my hope that the Navy will reconsider this egregious decision and continue to recognize the extraordinary contributions of Harvey Milk, a veteran himself, and all Americans who forged historic progress for our nation,' she concluded. _____

FEMA Is Not Prepared
FEMA Is Not Prepared

Atlantic

time20 minutes ago

  • Atlantic

FEMA Is Not Prepared

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Who manages the disaster if the disaster managers are the disaster? That's a question that the people of the United States may have to answer soon. As hurricane season begins in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in disarray. Reuters reported yesterday that acting FEMA head David Richardson suggested during a meeting with employees that he was unaware of the very existence of a hurricane season. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security dismissed the report: 'Despite meanspirited attempts to falsely frame a joke as policy, there is no uncertainty about what FEMA will be doing this Hurricane Season.' The spokesperson added, 'FEMA is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens.' FEMA employees, and Americans at large, might be forgiven for having doubts. Richardson has only been on the job since early May, when his predecessor was abruptly fired after telling Congress he did not believe that FEMA should be eliminated, as President Donald Trump has contemplated. Richardson is a Marine veteran who had been leading the DHS office that seeks to prevent attacks on the U.S. involving weapons of mass destruction, but he has no experience with disaster management. The Wall Street Journal reported that he had expressed surprise at how broad FEMA's remit is. (The last time FEMA was led by an administrator whose profession was not emergency management was the mid-2000s, under Michael Brown. If you don't know how that turned out, I recommend my colleague Vann R. Newkirk II's award-winning podcast on Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines.) But Richardson surely is aware of hurricane season. In mid-May, CNN obtained an internal document warning that FEMA was badly behind schedule. 'As FEMA transforms to a smaller footprint, the intent for this hurricane season is not well understood, thus FEMA is not ready,' it read. (DHS, which oversees FEMA, said the information was 'grossly out of context.') To calm worries at the agency, Richardson held a conference call. 'I would say we're about 80 or 85 percent there,' he told staff, according to ABC News. 'The next week, we will close that gap and get to probably 97 to 98 percent of a plan. We'll never have 100 percent of a plan.' That was not the most reassuring answer, and it looks worse now. The Journal reports that in the same meeting yesterday where Richardson suggested unfamiliarity with hurricane season, he also said the agency would return to its 2024 hurricane-preparedness strategy. How that will work is anyone's guess, given that FEMA has already slashed programs and staff since last year's hurricane season. (FEMA responded to my request for comment with DHS's statement, but did not answer specific questions or make any official available for an interview.) FEMA is not a large part of the federal government by budget or staff, but it is an important one because it directly affects the lives of ordinary Americans in their worst moments. Washington can seem distant and abstract, but disasters are not, and as Hurricane Helene last year demonstrated, even people living in supposed ' climate havens ' are susceptible to extreme weather. In the aftermath of Helene, Trump grasped the widespread public fury at FEMA, which storm victims felt was not responsive enough, fast enough. (Major disasters are major, and even the best-managed response is going to be slower than anyone wants, but no one seems to think this was the best-managed response.) As a candidate, he was quick to say that the Biden administration should do more, but since becoming president again, he has taken steps to ensure that FEMA can and will do less. FEMA is also making recovery harder for the victims of past disasters. In April, the agency declined to declare a major disaster in Washington State, which would free up funding for recovery from a bomb cyclone in November 2024; the state's entire congressional delegation pleaded with him to reconsider. DHS also denied North Carolina more funding for cleanup after Helene, which Governor Josh Stein estimated would cost state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The president also refused individual federal assistance to nine Arkansas counties struck by tornadoes in March, only reversing the decision after Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as press secretary in Trump's first administration, called the president directly. In the post-FEMA future that Trump has floated, states would be responsible for all disaster recovery. Some conservatives have long argued that states need to shoulder more responsibility for smaller disasters, but most states (and territories such as Puerto Rico) simply don't have the resources to respond to large-scale disasters like Helene. This is, after all, one reason the 13 colonies united in the first place: for mutual aid and protection. The federal government has much greater resources and, unlike most states, is not required to balance its budget annually. That makes it a crucial financial backstop. As Brock Long, who led FEMA during Trump's first term, told me last year, 'All disasters are locally executed, state managed, and federally supported.' FEMA has not, generally, been a partisan agency. Administrators may have different political views, but they try to provide help without consideration for politics. I've spoken with several administrators over the years, and they are consistently professional, don't take wildly differing approaches to their work, and are dedicated to emergency response. When an employee at FEMA was caught telling workers not to help people with Trump signs in their yards, it was rightly a scandal. Yet in his first term, Trump himself reportedly withheld or delayed disaster funds in multiple cases based on partisanship. His reversal on assistance for Arkansas residents raises the specter of a future in which only states whose governors are close to Trump can hope to obtain relief. And yet if FEMA isn't prepared for hurricane season, doesn't have sufficient staff, and is laboring under a president who would like to see it gone, the problem may not be that only the president's allies can get help from the federal government—but rather that no one can. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the family of the man accused of Sunday's attack at a Colorado demonstration for Israeli hostages has been taken into ICE custody. Elon Musk posted on X calling President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act a 'disgusting abomination.' Mount Etna, an active volcano in eastern Sicily, erupted. No injuries resulted. Dispatches Work in Progress: Derek Thompson explains the No. 1 rule for understanding Donald Trump. More From The Atlantic Evening Read Nutrition Science's Most Preposterous Result By David Merritt Johns From 2023 Last summer, I got a tip about a curious scientific finding. 'I'm sorry, it cracks me up every time I think about this,' my tipster said. Back in 2018, a Harvard doctoral student named Andres Ardisson Korat was presenting his research on the relationship between dairy foods and chronic disease to his thesis committee. One of his studies had led him to an unusual conclusion: Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems. Needless to say, the idea that a dessert loaded with saturated fat and sugar might actually be good for you raised some eyebrows at the nation's most influential department of nutrition. Culture Break Watch. Our writers and editors recommend five movies they could watch over and over again. P.S. Professional emergency managers are some of the most impressive people I've interviewed. To succeed, they have to be extremely practical, very creative, and totally unflappable. In 2015, while reporting an article on ' maximums of maximums '—the biggest hypothetical catastrophes the nation could face—I asked some sources what their nightmare was. 'What keeps me up is another form of a pandemic, respiratory transmitted, highly lethal virus,' Anthony Fauci told me. (Good prediction, doc.) But when I asked Craig Fugate, then FEMA's administrator, what kept him up at night, he answered in the way that only a veteran of many disasters could: 'Nothing.' — David Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.

Elon Musk calls Donald Trump-backed tax bill a 'disgusting abomination'
Elon Musk calls Donald Trump-backed tax bill a 'disgusting abomination'

Yahoo

time20 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Elon Musk calls Donald Trump-backed tax bill a 'disgusting abomination'

Elon Musk has criticised US President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill, calling it "outrageous" and a "disgusting abomination". The bill, which includes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks, was passed by the House Republicans in May, and has been described by the president as a "big, beautiful bill". The tech billionaire hit out at the tax cuts on his platform X, writing: "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. "Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it." In American politics, "pork" is a political metaphor used when government spending is allocated to local projects, usually to benefit politicians' constituencies. Musk left the administration abruptly last week after working to cut costs with his team, the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency - known as DOGE - with the ambition of sacking federal workers and cutting red tape. The White House brushed Musk's comments aside, claiming they did not surprise the president. In a press conference on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill". She added: "This is one, big, beautiful bill. "And he's sticking to it."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store