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On a freezing cold Wednesday afternoon in eastern Kentucky, Taysha DeVaughan joined a small gathering at the foot of a reclaimed strip mine to celebrate a homecoming. Its a return of an ancestor, DeVaughan said. Its a return of a relative. That relative was the land they stood on, part of a tract slated for a federal penitentiary that many in the crowd consider another injustice in a region riddled with them. The mine shut down years ago, but the site, near the town of Roxana, still bears the scars of extraction. DeVaughan, an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, joined some two dozen people on January 22 to celebrate the Appalachian Rekindling Project buying 63 acres within the prisons footprint. What were here to do is to protect her and to give her a voice, DeVaughan said. Shes been through mountaintop removal. Shes been blown up, shes been scraped up, shes been hurt. The Appalachian Rekindling Project, which she helped found last year, wants to rewild the site with bison and native flora and fauna, open it to intertribal gatherings, and, it hopes, stop the prison. The environmental justice organization worked with a coalition of local nonprofits, including Build Community Not Prisons and the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, to raise $160,000 to buy the plot from retired truck driver Wayne Whitaker. Hed only just purchased it as a hunting ground, and it was an easy sell. Theres nothing positive well get out of this prison, he said. The penitentiary has been a gleam in the eye of state and local officials and the Bureau of Prisons since 2006. It has always sparked sharp divisions in Roxana and beyond and was killed in 2019 after a series of lawsuits, only to be quietly resurrected in 2022. Last fall, the bureau took the final step in its approval process, clearing the way to begin buying land. Some in Letcher County, which saw 5.2% of its population leave between 2020 and 2023 and grapples with a 24% poverty rate, believe the prison will replace jobs and tax revenue lost with the decline of coal. Federal prison construction has boomed in central Appalachia as mining has faltered, with 8 of the 16 penitentiaries built there, often atop mines, located in Kentucky alone. Those are all expressions of the economic crisis that has occurred due to the collapse of the coal industry, and for which the prisons and the jails are proposed, said Judah Schept, a professor of justice studies at Eastern Kentucky University. In his book Coal, Cages, Crisis, Schept noted that mine sites are considered ideal locations for prisons or a dumping ground for waste, rather than places of ecological value, as some biologists have argued. The Roxana site has been reclaimed, meaning re-vegetated with a forest that now shelters a number of rare species, including endangered bats. Opponents argue that a prison will bring more environmental problems than jobs. Letcher County was 1 of 13 counties ravaged by catastrophic flooding in 2022, a situation exacerbated by damage strip mining caused to local watersheds. The prison slated for Roxana will exacerbate the problem. The Bureau of Prisons estimates it will damage 6,290 feet of streams and about two acres of wetlands. (The agency has promised to compensate the state.) DeVaughan said the purchase also is a step toward rectifying the dispossession that began with the forced removal and genocide of Indigenous peoples. The Cherokee, Shawnee, and Yuchi made their homes in the area before, during, and after colonization, and their thriving nations raised crops, ran businesses, and hunted bison that once roamed Appalachia. In all the time since, coal, timber, gas, and landholding companies have at times owned almost half of the land in 80 counties stretching from West Virginia to Alabama. Several prisons sprang from deals made with coal companies, something many locals consider the continuation of this status quo. Changing that dynamic is a priority for the Appalachian Rekindling Project, which hoped to buy more land to protect it from extractive industries and return its stewardship to Indigenous and local communities. DeVaughn said Indigenous peoples throughout the region will be welcome to use the land as a gathering place. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation, and United Keetoowah Band did not respond to requests for comment. DeVaughan sees its work establishing a new vision of economic transition for coalfields, one that relies less on dollars and numbers and more on healing and restoration of the land and the Indigenous and other communities that live there. She is working with the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations to acquire a herd of bison and plans to work with local volunteers, scientists, and students to inventory the sites flora and fauna. The plot sits at the edge of the 500-acre site outlined for the prison, which would hold over 1,300 people in the main facility and adjoining camp. A representative of the Bureau of Prisons told Grist land acquisition will continue. This isnt the first time the agency has hit such a pothole. Six years ago, Letcher County master falconer Mitch Whitaker refused to sell nearly 12 acres, requiring the agency to revise its plans. The prospect of doing so again led Representative Hal Rogers, who represents the area in Congress and has been the leading champion for the prison, to lambaste ARP and its allies. This land purchase comes as no surprise from a group led by Kentucky outsiders and liberal extremists, he said in a statement. But many of those on hand that Wednesday to celebrate the sale were local residents like Artie Ann Bates, who grew up in Letcher County and saw waves of strip mining damage her familys land. Its just really hard seeing a place you love be destroyed, she said. The purchase is a sign of progress, she added, bundled up at the foot of the mine site alongside her neighbors. Katie Myers, Grist This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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Dozens of senior officials put on leave. Thousands of contractors laid off. A freeze put on billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to other countries. Over the past two weeks, President Donald Trump’s administration has made significant changes to the U.S. agency charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas that has left aid organizations agonizing over whether they can continue with programs such as nutritional assistance for malnourished infants and children. Then-President John F. Kennedy established the U.S. Agency for International Development, known as USAID, during the Cold War. In the decades since, Republicans and Democrats have fought over the agency and its funding. Heres a look at USAID, its history, and the changes made since Trump took office. What is USAID? Kennedy created USAID at the height of the United Statess Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union. He wanted a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance and saw the State Department as frustratingly bureaucratic at doing that. Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act and Kennedy set up USAID as an independent agency in 1961. USAID has outlived the Soviet Union, which fell in 1991. Today, supporters of USAID argue that U.S. assistance in countries counters Russian and Chinese influence. China has its own belt and road foreign aid program worldwide operating in many countries that the U.S. also wants as partners. Critics say the programs are wasteful and promote a liberal agenda. Whats going on with USAID? On his first day in office Jan. 20, Trump implemented a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance. Four days later, Peter Maroccoa returning political appointee from Trumps first termdrafted a tougher than expected interpretation of that order, a move that shut down thousands of programs around the world and forced furloughs and layoffs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since moved to keep more kinds of strictly life-saving emergency programs going during the freeze. But confusion over what programs are exempted from the Trump administrations stop-work ordersand fear of losing U.S. aid permanentlyis still freezing aid and development work globally. Dozens of senior officials have been put on leave, thousands of contractors laid off, and employees were told Monday not to enter its Washington headquarters. And USAID’s website and its account on the X platform have been taken down. Its part of a Trump administration crackdown thats hitting across the federal government and its programs. But USAID and foreign aid are among those hit the hardest. Rubio said the administrations aim was a program-by-program review of which projects make America safer, stronger, or more prosperous. The decision to shut down U.S.-funded programs during the 90-day review meant the U.S. was getting a lot more cooperation from recipients of humanitarian, development, and security assistance, Rubio said. What do critics of USAID say? Republicans typically push to give the State Departmentwhich provides overall foreign policy guidance to USAIDmore control of its policy and funds. Democrats typically promote USAID autonomy and authority. Funding for United Nations agencies, including peacekeeping, human rights, and refugee agencies, have been traditional targets for Republican administrations to cut. The first Trump administration moved to reduce foreign aid spending, suspending payments to various U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Population Fund and funding to the Palestinian Authority. In Trump’s first term, the U.S. pulled out of the U.N. Human Rights Council and its financial obligations to that body. The U.S. is also barred from funding the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, under a bill signed by then-President Joe Biden last March. As a Florida senator, Rubio often called for more transparency on foreign assistance spending, but was generally supportive. In a 2017 social media post, Rubio said foreign assistance was not charity,” that the U.S. must make sure it is well spent” and called foreign aid critical to our national security.” In 2023, Rubio sponsored a bill that would have required U.S. foreign assistance agencies to include more information on what organizations were implementing the aid on the ground. Why is Elon Musk going after USAID? Musks Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has launched a sweeping effort empowered by Trump to fire government workers and cut trillions in government spending. USAID is one of his prime targets. Musk alleges USAID funding been used to launch deadly programs and called it a criminal organization. What is being affected by the USAID freeze? Sub-Saharan Africa could suffer more than any other region during the aid pause. The U.S. gave the region more than $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance last year. HIV patients in Africa arriving at clinics funded by an acclaimed U.S. program that helped rein in the global AIDS epidemic of the 1980s found locked doors. There are also already ramifications in Latin America. In Mexico, a busy shelter for migrants in southern Mexico has been left without a doctor. A program to provide mental health support for LGBTQ+ youth fleeing Venezuela was disbanded. In Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala, so-called Safe Mobility Offices where migrants can apply to enter the U.S. legally have shuttered. The aid community is struggling to get the full picturehow many thousands of programs have shut down and how many thousands of workers were furloughed and laid off under the freeze? How much does the U.S. spend on foreign aid? In all, the U.S. spent about roughly $40 billion in foreign aid in the 2023 fiscal year, according to a report published last month by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The U.S. is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally, although some other countries spend a bigger share of their budget on it. Foreign assistance overall amounts to less than 1% of the U.S. budget. What do Americans think of foreign aid? About 6 in 10 U.S. adults said the U.S. govrnment was spending too much overall on foreign aid, according to a March 2023 AP-NORC poll. Asked about specific costs, roughly 7 in 10 U.S. adults said the U.S. government was putting too much money toward assistance to other countries. About 9 in 10 Republicans and 55% of Democrats agreed that the country was overspending on foreign aid. At the time, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults said the government was spending too little on domestic issues that included education, health care, infrastructure, Social Security, and Medicare. Polling has shown that U.S. adults tend to overestimate the share of the federal budget that is spent on foreign aid. Surveys from KFF have found that on average, Americans say spending on foreign aid makes up 31% of the federal budget rather than closer to 1% or less. Could Trump dissolve USAID on his own? Democrats say presidents lack the constitutional authority to eliminate USAID. But its not clear what would stop him from trying. A mini version of that legal battle played out in Trumps first term, when he tried to cut the budget for foreign operations by a third. When Congress refused, the Trump administration used freezes and other tactics to cut the flow of funds already appropriated by Congress for the foreign programs. The Government Accountability Office later ruled that violated a law known as the Impoundment Control Act. Its a law we may be hearing more of. Live by executive order, die by executive order, Musk said on X Saturday in reference to USAID. Ellen Knickmeyer and Meg Kinnard, Associated Press Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
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Apple rolled out its newest iPhone app called Invites, which lets iCloud+ subscribers create and share invitations to anyone, regardless of whether they have an Apple account or Apple device. Hosts have control over the events. They can choose what details they want included in the invite preview, like a home address and what image to use as a background. The event page also integrates the Maps and Weather apps so that attendees know how to get there and what the forecast will be. Within an event, attendees can manage RSVPs, contribute to Shared Albums dedicated to specific events, and collaborate on Apple Music playlists. Invites is available on the App Store starting today for iPhone models running iOS 18 or later, and it can also be accessed through the web. Apple’s iCloud+ service starts at 99 cents a month. The launch appears to put the app up against the extremely popular Partiful, a third party event planning event that made Google Play’s Best App of 2024. Partiful, popular among Gen Z, also has simple user interfaces and is free to use. Invites is also competing against other platforms, like Paperless Post and evite. Apple Invites brings together capabilities our users already know and love across iPhone, iCloud, and Apple Music, making it easy to plan special events,” Apple’s Brent Chiu-Watson said in a press release.
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