Abroad
2025 January
2025-01-24 PEPFAR was designed to implement life-saving HIV treatment services for pregnant and breastfeeding women, and orphans. The Trump administration cut funding for treatment to pregnant and breastfeeding women, orphans and vulnerable children. GOP members like Senator Kennedy were upset because some of the lifesaving care went to homosexuals, transgenders, and intersex patients, calling it “sick-bucket stuff”. After cuts were made, patients who normally received care for free no longer could reach care, and orphans like 14-year-old Mande Andrew died because of them.
https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html
2025 July
2025-07-14 Members who were left in USAID reached out to the Trump administration to ask for release of food stocks intended to feed 30,000+ starving children. The administration ignored the requests for weeks, allowed the food stock to expire, then announced it would incinerate the food. It was roughly 500 metric tons of food they allowed to spoil then incinerated, rather than feed hungry children.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/07/usaid-emergency-food-incinerate-trump/683532/
2025 October
2025-10-25 PBS covered a story about how nurse Agnes Nambozo scales a 1000-foot ladder to work every day to reach the children in a remote part of Uganda to administer vaccines and life-saving care, and now that USAID has been dismantled she must also cover the work of several other people who, because of the Trump administration, are no longer available to provide aid.
https://nurse.org/news/uganda-nurse-climbs-ladders-to-save-lives/
2025 December
2025-12-17 After the Trump administration shut down USAID, reporters found that in Kenya where they relied on USAID mothers had to choose which of their kids to feed and pregnant women were so desperate for food they were eating mud.
https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
2026 February
2026-02-08 The New York Times reported “more than 2000 health clinics have closed in crisis zones around the world”. See article “What We Lost When We Lost U.S.A.I.D.”. France-24 reported that in just one district 29 children died in just a month’s time from malnutrition and illness; deaths which would have been avoided if funding had been maintained according to one of the coordinators of Action Against Hunger in Ituri.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/opinion/usaid-humanitarian-aid-america.html
https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/location/africa/democratic-republic-congo/
2026-02-28 The US, in joint efforts with Israel, bombed Iran. Only one of the news outlets reported over 200 people including 170 schoolchildren were killed on the first day of bombings. The US did not seek Congressional or international approval and did not provide proof there was an imminent threat warranting the bombing. For context, Trump stated several months ago that the US already destroyed nuclear bombs in Iran and ran on the platform that the US would never start a war in the Middle East. Trump said after the bombing, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take”.
https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-crisis-live-explosions-tehran-israel-announces-strike-2026-02-28/
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/why-trump-war-iran-benefits
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/28/middleeast/maps-iran-tehran-attack-vis-intl
https://www.cfr.org/articles/gauging-the-impact-of-massive-u-s-israeli-strikes-on-iran
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/02/28/special_report_us_israel_launch_unprovoked
2026 March
2026-03-04 News outlets published the names of the children killed by the U.S. Tomahawk missile that hit the school in Minab, Iran.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/names-and-ages-children-iranian-school-strike
https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/03/06/iran-girls-school-strike/88968796007/
2026-03-10 When asked about the US bombing a girl’s school in Iran, Trump claimed that Iran launched a Tomahawk missile on itself. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth and Karoline Leavitt contradicted Trump’s certainty, saying it was still under investigation.
2026-03-17 A US-Israeli bombing killed a 3-day-old infant, his 2-year-old sister, and their mother and grandmother.