The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a 'death sentence'

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The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a 'death sentence'

2025-04-08 14:22 Last Updated At：14:30

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has ended funding to U.N. World Food Program emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the organization and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.

The World Food Program, the largest provider of food aid, appealed to the U.S. to roll back the new cuts in a social media post Monday. The unexpected round of contract cancellations has targeted some of the last remaining humanitarian programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to two U.S. officials, a United Nations official and documents obtained by the AP.

“This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” WFP said on X.

The agency said it was in contact with the Trump administration “to urge for continued support” for lifesaving programs and thanked the United States and other donors for past contributions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programs and other life-and-death aid from deep cuts to U.S. foreign assistance. There was no immediate comment Monday from the State Department.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the U.S. Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programs, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP.

In Syria, a country battling poverty, hunger and insecurity after a 13-year civil war and an insurgency by the Islamic State group, some $230 million in contracts with WFP and humanitarian groups was terminated in recent days, according to a State Department document detailing the cuts that was obtained by the AP.

The single biggest of the targeted Syria programs, at $111 million, provided bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people, the document says.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said all U.S. aid to WFP food programs across Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, has been stopped, apparently including food that already had arrived in distribution centers.

WFP also received termination letters for U.S.-funded programs in Lebanon and Jordan, where Syrian refugees would be hit hardest, the U.N. official said.

Some of the last remaining U.S. funding for key programs in Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, one of the U.S. officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Current and former USAID experts and partners said some $560 million in humanitarian aid was cut to Afghanistan, including for emergency food assistance, the treatment of severely malnourished babies, lifesaving medical care, safe drinking water, and emergency mental health treatment for survivors of sexual and physical violence.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled U.S. funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling because of Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The abrupt end of WFP programs threatens some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, many of which depend on such food aid, according to humanitarian groups. The U.S. and other donors long have seen efforts to ease humanitarian crises as being in their strategic interest by stemming mass migration, conflicts and extremism, which struggles for resources can bring.

WFP chief Cindy McCain said in a posting on social media that the cuts “undermine global stability.”

Rubio had notified Congress and courts last month that USAID contract cuts were over, with about 1,000 programs spared worldwide and more than 5,000 others eliminated. That added to the shock of the new cuts.

The Trump administration has accused USAID of wastefulness and advancing liberal causes.

Trump's freeze on all foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department led to a brief shutdown of services at the al-Hol camp, where tens of thousands of alleged Islamic State fighters and their families are kept under guard.

That shutdown raised fears of an uprising or breakout at the camp. U.S. officials quickly intervened to restore services.

The State Department document obtained by the AP identifies two newly terminated contracts, run by Save the Children and the U.N. Population Fund, which provided mental health services and other care to women and children at al-Hol. It was not immediately clear if any other services were affected at the camp.

The U.S. had been the major funder of the WFP, providing $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in donations to the food agency last year.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Biller from Rome. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

US Supreme Court won't delay Karen Read's murder trial which should start next week

2025-04-11 00:18 Last Updated At：00:21

The U.S. Supreme Court will not delay Karen Read’s second murder trial on claims of double jeopardy, setting the stage for opening statements to be presented next week.

Read’s attorneys had filed an emergency appeal for a delay in the trial, contending that trying her again on second-degree murder and leaving the scene would be double jeopardy. But the high court's denial means the trial could start early next week, since all but one of the jurors have been chosen. Jury selection began last week. Lawyers are seeking to seat 16 jurors, with four serving as alternates.

Read, who lives in Mansfield, Massachusetts, is accused of striking her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm in 2022 outside a house party in nearby Canton. Her attorneys have said O’Keefe was actually killed by someone else, possibly another law enforcement agent who was at the party, and that she was framed.

Last year, the judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they were at an impasse and deliberating further would be futile.

After the trial, several jurors came forward to say the group was unanimous in finding Read not guilty of the most serious charge, second-degree murder, and a lesser charge. Despite attempts by Read’s lawyers to get those charges dismissed, she will face the same counts as she did at her first trial. They also failed to have the entire case tossed, arguing governmental misconduct.

Read, who worked as a financial analyst and as a Bentley College adjunct professor before she was charged, faces second-degree murder and other charges in the death of John O’Keefe, who was 46 when he died. The 16-year police veteran was found unresponsive outside the home of a fellow Boston police officer.

After a night out drinking, prosecutors say Read, who is 45, dropped off O’Keefe at the house party just after midnight. As she made a three-point turn, prosecutors say, she struck O’Keefe before driving away. She returned hours later to find him in a snowbank.

As they did at the first trial, prosecutors will try to convince jurors that Read’s actions were intentional. They are expected to call witnesses who will describe how the couple's relationship had begun to sour before O'Keefe's death. Among them will be his brother, who testified during the first trial that the couple regularly argued over such matters as what Read fed O’Keefe’s children, and that he witnessed a 2021 fight the couple had in Cape Cod over how his brother treated her. The brother's wife testified that Read told her the couple had argued in Aruba after she caught O’Keefe kissing another woman.

The defense is expected to portray the investigation into O’Keefe’s death as shoddy and undermined by the close relationship investigators had with the police officers and other law enforcement agents who were at the house party.

Among the key witnesses they will call is former State Trooper Michael Proctor, who led the investigation but has since been fired after a disciplinary board found he sent sexist and crude texts about Read to his family and colleagues. He is also on the prosecution's witness list.

A key moment in the first trial was Proctor’s testimony, in which the defense suggested his texts about Read and the case showed he was biased, and had singled her out early in the investigation and ignored other potential suspects.

They also are expected to suggest Read was framed, saying O’Keefe was actually killed inside the home during a fight with another partygoer and then dragged outside. In the first trial, defense attorneys suggested investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to consider law enforcement officers as suspects.

Ahead of the second trial, the two sides sparred over whether Read's lawyers will be allowed to argue that someone else killed O'Keefe. Judge Beverly Cannone ruled Monday that attorneys can't mention potential third-party culprits in their opening statements but will be allowed to develop evidence against Brian Albert, a retired police officer who owned the Canton home, and his friend Brian Higgins. Lawyers cannot implicate Albert's nephew, Colin Albert, the judge said.

A town-commissioned Canton Police Department audit following O'Keefe's death was released Sunday. While not reinvestigating any cases, its top suggestions regarding Read's were that first responders should have photographed O'Keefe where he was found before he was moved; that all interviews of “critical witnesses” should have been done at the department after O'Keefe was taken to a hospital; and that agreed-to recordings of witness interviews be conducted.

Soon after the mistrial, Read's lawyers set out to get the main charges dropped.

They argued Judge Cannone declared a mistrial without polling the jurors to confirm their conclusions. Defense attorney Martin Weinberg said five jurors indicated after the trial that they were only deadlocked on the manslaughter count and had unanimously agreed that she wasn’t guilty of second-degree murder and leaving the scene, but that they hadn’t told the judge.

The defense said that because jurors had agreed Read wasn't guilty of murder and leaving the scene, retrying her on those counts would amount to double jeopardy. But Cannone rejected that argument, as did the state's highest court, a federal court judge, and an appeals court.

Prosecutors had urged Cannone to dismiss the double jeopardy claim, saying it amounted to "hearsay, conjecture and legally inappropriate reliance as to the substance of jury deliberations.” Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally argued that the jurors never indicated they had reached a verdict on any of the charges, were given clear instructions on how to reach a verdict, and that the defense had ample opportunity to object to the mistrial declaration.

The second trial will likely look similar to the first. It will be held in the same courthouse before the same judge, and dozens of Read's passionate supporters are again expected to rally outside. The charges, primary defense lawyers and many of the nearly 200 witnesses will also be the same.

The biggest difference will be the lead prosecutor, Hank Brennan. A former prosecutor and defense attorney who was brought in as a special prosecutor after the mistrial, Brennan has represented several prominent clients, including notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, and experts think he might be more forceful than Lally was in arguing the case.