USAID's Demise Threatens a Vital Health and Climate Solution in Africa
The Trump administration's gutting of the US Agency for International Development, with 80% of its programs now canceled, is a blow for clean cookstove programs in Africa. That means more Africans will have to rely on burning wood or charcoal in their homes, driving air pollution, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions across the continent.
Clean cookstoves run on electricity, gas or smaller amounts of biomass, and switching households to less polluting cooking methods reduces harmful impacts. Health and environmental advocates for years have promoted clean cooking as an affordable, win-win solution. But the stoppage of US aid has left many projects in limbo.
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Associated Press
34 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Judge tosses lawsuit over Trump's firing of US African Development Foundation board members
A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit over President Donald Trump's dismantling of a U.S. federal agency that invests in African small businesses. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., dismissed the case on Tuesday, finding that Trump was acting within his legal authority when he fired the U.S. African Development Foundation's board members in February. In March, the same judge ruled that the administration's removal of most grant money and staff from the congressionally created agency was also legal, as long as the agency was maintained at the minimum level required by law. USADF was created as an independent agency in 1980, and its board members must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In 2023, Congress allocated $46 million to the agency to invest in small agricultural and energy infrastructure projects and other economic development initiatives in 22 African countries. On Feb. 19, Trump issued an executive order that said USADF, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Inter-American Foundation and the Presidio Trust should be scaled back to the minimum presence required by law. At the time, USADF had five of its seven board seats filled. A few days later, an administration official told Ward Brehm that he was fired, and emails were sent to the other board members notifying them that they had also been terminated. Those emails were never received, however, because they were sent to the wrong email addresses. The four board members, believing they still held their posts because they had not been given notice, met in March and passed a resolution appointing Brehm as the president of the board. But Trump had already appointed Pete Marocco as the new chairman of what the administration believed to now be a board of one. Since then, both men have claimed to be the president of the agency, and Brehm filed the lawsuit March 6. Leon said that even though they didn't receive the emails, the four board members were effectively terminated in February, and so they didn't have the authority to appoint Brehm to lead the board. An attorney for Brehm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Another lawsuit over the dismantling of the agency is still pending before the same judge. In that case, two USADF staffers and a consulting firm based in Zambia that works closely with USADF contend that the Trump administration's efforts to deeply scale back the agency wrongly usurps Congress' powers. They also say Marocco was unlawfully appointed to the board, in part because he was never confirmed by the Senate as required. Leon's ruling in Brehm's case did not address whether the Trump administration had the power to install Marocco as board chair on a temporary basis.
CBS News
37 minutes ago
- CBS News
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is "defending bedrock constitutional protections for all of us," his lawyer says
Washington — A lawyer for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the mistakenly deported man who was recently brought back from El Salvador to face charges in the U.S., said his case is bigger than one individual. Chris Newman, who represents Abrego Garcia' family, told CBS News' Major Garrett in an interview that he does not see the case as a referendum on immigration, but as a potential turning point in the erosion of due process rights in the U.S. "The Trump administration is very invested in making this a referendum on the immigration debate, which, as you know, has become coarsened and polarized," Newman said. "And that is one way to look at it. And I think certainly a lot of people view it that way. I don't view it that way. I view this as a core constitutional order case, a core due process case. And it just so happens that a Salvadoran immigrant is defending bedrock constitutional protections for all of us." Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. on Friday to face charges of human smuggling, amid an escalating battle between the Trump administration and the courts. The case ignited widespread outrage after Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador and held in an infamous supermax prison along with hundreds of other deportees, despite a judge ruling years earlier that he shouldn't be deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration admitted that his deportation was an "administrative error." A judge had ordered the government to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S., but the administration did not bring him back for months, arguing it was up to the Salvadoran government whether to release him. The indictment, which was unsealed Friday, alleges that Abrego Garcia and others transported thousands of migrants across the U.S. who were in the country illegally. It also claims that many of the undocumented migrants were members of the gang MS-13. The administration has also accused Abrego Garcia of MS-13 membership, which his family and attorneys strongly deny. "Until Friday, Kilmar Abrego Garcia had never been charged with any crime, either in the United States or El Salvador, but you wouldn't know that if you watched White House press briefings for the last two months," Newman said. "All we've been asking up until this point is for Kilmar to have his day in court so he could defend himself." In court papers over the weekend, Abrego Garcia's lawyers accused the Trump administration of an "elaborate, all-of-government effort to defy court orders, deny due process, and disparage Abrego Garcia." The administration says it has complied with court orders by returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S. Newman said that Democratic lawmakers who visited Abrego Garcia when he was imprisoned in El Salvador came back with a warning from Salvadorians whose family members had been treated similarly by President Nayib Bukele's government. "We in El Salvador have no more guardrails. We have no more Supreme Court. We have no more check against President Bukele, other than public opinion. You all have to fight to make sure that you keep the bedrock institutions of your democracy because we've already lost them in El Salvador," Newman said of their message.
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
NJ Congresswoman Indicted Over Scuffle at ICE Facility, US Says
A federal grand jury indicted a Democratic House lawmaker from Newark, New Jersey, over her confrontation with US immigration officers outside a private detention facility that is key to the Trump administration's mass deportation plans, according to a prosecutor. US Representative LaMonica McIver was accused in a three-count indictment of forcibly impeding and interfering with law enforcement agents outside the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, Alina Habba, the interim US attorney for New Jersey, said late Tuesday in a social media post. The indictment wasn't immediately available on the court's electronic docket.
