USAID shutdown ripples through grassroots groups worldwide: "A huge impact on actual human lives"
CBSN
Abdul Fatorma, chief executive of the Campaign for Human Rights and Development International, had been working on expanding democracy in Sierra Leone for seven years.
Civil war had plagued the West African coastal nation for decades, ending in 2002 — and slowly, peace had returned, helping to reduce migration and violence. Essential to that progress, Sierra Leone's civil service advocates believe, is nurturing democracy and human rights. Fatorma's grassroots campaign was granted $1 million in U.S. funding in 2023 to continue work on those goals.
Around two years later the project — which promoted meaningful participation of all citizens in their political systems, expanded the reach of civic education and encouraged female aspirants to run for office — ended last week when Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a pause on all new U.S. foreign assistance programs funded by the State Department and USAID. Almost all of the agency's workers are being put on leave.
The leader of Canada's most populous province of Ontario said Monday that he's ripping up a contract with Elon Musk's Starlink internet service in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on Canada.
Another car bomb exploded on the outskirts of a city in northern Syria on Monday, killing at least 20 people and leaving over a dozen wounded, officials and emergency responders said.
A former British soldier convicted of spying for Iran after an audacious three-day escape from a London prison was sentenced Monday to more than 14 years behind bars for betraying his country.
Sydney, Australia — A shark bit and killed a 17-year-old girl swimming off an eastern Australian island on Monday, officials said, in the country's third reported fatal attack in just over five weeks. Paramedics rushed to Woorim Beach in Queensland to treat the teenager, who had sustained serious injuries to her upper body, an ambulance service spokesperson said.
Two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development have been placed on administrative leave, the latest in a series of suspensions and layoffs at the American government's primary humanitarian aid agency.
A series of earthquakes near the Greek island of Santorini have led authorities to shut down schools, dispatch rescue teams with sniffer dogs and send instructions to residents including a request to drain their swimming pools.
Powerful Arab nations rejected President Trump's suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.
Tel Aviv — American-Israeli dual national Keith Siegel was among three hostages released by militants in the war-torn Gaza Strip on Saturday, more than 15 months after they were taken captive by Hamas. Siegel was freed in Gaza City about two hours after Israelis Yarden Bibas and Ofer Calderon were released in the southern city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military confirmed Siegel's transfer from militants to Red Cross personnel.
Six Americans who had been detained in Venezuela in recent months were freed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro after he met Friday with a Trump administration official tasked with urging the authoritarian leader to take back deported migrants who have committed crimes in the United States.
Mexico's government, under mounting pressure from President Trump to curb drug trafficking, announced Friday that it had seized 18 kilos of fentanyl hidden in a bus.