Health
Trump and Musk Bring Vast Aid Machinery to a Halt in Africa
For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance.
In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday, accusing the agency of unspecified corruption and fraud.
A federal judge on Friday halted, for now, some elements of Mr. Trump’s attempt to shutter the agency. But the speed and shock of the administration’s actions have already led to confusion, fear and even paranoia at U.S.A.I.D. offices across Africa, a top recipient of agency funding. Workers were being fired or furloughed en masse.
As the true scale of the fallout comes into view, African governments are wondering how to fill gaping holes left in vital services, like health care and education, that until recent weeks were funded by the United States. Aid groups and United Nations bodies that feed the starving or house refugees have seen their budgets slashed in half, or worse.
By far the greatest price is being paid by ordinary Africans, millions of whom rely on American aid for their survival. But the consequences are also reverberating across an aid sector that, for better or worse, has been a pillar of Western engagement with Africa for over six decades. With the collapse of U.S.A.I.D., that entire model is badly shaken.
“This is dramatic and consequential, and it’s hard to imagine rowing it back,” said Murithi Mutiga, Africa program director at the International Crisis Group. Mr. Mutiga described the collapse of the agency as “part of the unraveling of the post Cold War order.”
“Once, the primacy of the West was assumed” in Africa, he said. “No more.”
Experts say the agency’s abrupt undoing will cost many lives by creating huge gaps in public services, especially in health care, where U.S.A.I.D. has poured much of its resources.
In Kenya alone, at least 40,000 health care workers will lose their jobs, U.S.A.I.D. officials say. On Friday, several U.N. agencies that depend on American funding began to furlough part of their staff. The United States also provides most of the funding for two large refugee camps in northern Kenya that house 700,000 people from at least 19 countries.
Ethiopia’s health ministry has fired 5,000 health care professionals who had been recruited under American funding, according to an official notification obtained by The New York Times.
“We are in disbelief,” said Medhanye Alem of the Center for Victims of Torture, which treats survivors of conflict-related trauma at nine centers in northern Ethiopia, all now closed.
Of over 10,000 U.S.A.I.D. employees worldwide, barely 300 will remain under changes conveyed to staff on Thursday night. Only 12 will remain in Africa.
The most pressing challenge for many governments is not to replace the American staff members or money, but to save American-built health systems that are rapidly crumbling to the ground, said Ken O. Opalo, a Kenyan political scientist at Georgetown University in Washington.
Kenya, for instance, has enough drugs to treat people with H.I.V. for over a year, Mr. Opalo said. “But the nurses and doctors to treat them are being let go, and the clinics are closing.”
Broader economic shocks are also likely in some of the world’s most fragile countries.
American aid accounts for 15 percent of economic output in South Sudan, 6 percent in Somalia and 4 percent in the Central African Republic, said Charlie Robertson, an economist who specializes in Africa. “We could see governance effectively cease in a few countries, unless others step up to replace the hole left by the U.S.,” he said.
Whether U.S.A.I.D. is truly dead may yet be determined by Congress and the U.S. courts, where supporters have filed a raft of legal challenges. But the Trump administration seems determined to move faster than its challengers.
As Mr. Musk and his team have commandeered the agency’s operations in Washington, shuttering its headquarters and sacking or suspending 94 percent of its staff, its vast aid machinery in Africa has shuddered to a halt.
In major hubs in Kenya, South Africa and Senegal, American aid officials were shocked to find themselves labeled “criminals” by Mr. Musk, then ordered to return to the United States, according to eight U.S.A.I.D. employees or contractors who all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
On Friday, the Trump administration gave all U.S.A.I.D. staff members 30 days to pack their bags and come home, causing turmoil among families now faced with the prospect of pulling children out of school on short notice. If the federal court that is now reviewing that directive does not overturn it, few will have jobs to return to.
Several U.S.A.I.D. officials noted that Google’s artificial intelligence system, Gemini, had been activated on their internal communications systems recently, and that internal video calls conducted on the Google platform were suddenly set to automatically record.
Officials said they worried that Mr. Musk’s team could use A.I. to monitor their conversations to ferret out dissenters, or to excerpt snippets of conversations that might be weaponized to discredit the agency.
Colleagues at the agency have turned to Signal, an encrypted messaging app, this week to share information unofficially. People are being driven by fear, one of them said.
In private, even senior U.S.A.I.D. officials agree that the agency needs an overhaul. In interviews, several recognized the need to streamline its bureaucracy, and even questioned an aid system that relies so heavily on American contractors and fosters a damaging culture of dependency among African governments.
Announcements by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and acting head of U.S.A.I.D., that emergency food and lifesaving aid would be exempted from the administration’s cuts were initially welcomed by employees. But, officials said, it turned out to be largely a mirage. Despite the promise of waivers, many have found it impossible to obtain one.
Worst of all, many said, were the broadsides delivered by Mr. Musk and the White House portraying the agency as a rogue, criminal agency run by spendthrift officials pursuing their personal agendas. Such attacks were false and deeply hurtful to Americans who sought to relieve human suffering around the world, several people said.
In Nairobi, where U.S.A.I.D. has about 250 Kenyan and 50 American staff members, several Kenyans spoke at a tense town hall this week.
They worried that talk at the White House of widespread corruption inside the agency might cause other Kenyans to believe that they, too, had benefited from fraud, said an official who attended the meeting.
Like the Americans present at the town hall, the Kenyans worried they were about to be fired. But there was one major difference between the two groups, the official noted: While the Kenyans were anxious for their livelihoods, the Americans were worried about their country.
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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Research continues to uncover new details on how fasting may help extend life.
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications investigated how intermittent fasting can boost longevity in small worms often used in aging research.
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas compared worms that were fed normally to those that underwent a 24-hour fast in early adulthood and were then fed again, according to a press release.
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The scientists measured a variety of factors, including stored fat, gene activity related to fat metabolism and lifespan.
The results showed that the life-boosting benefit did not depend on the fasting itself but on the body’s behavior after eating again.
Experts say sustainability is key when choosing a long-term weight-loss strategy. (iStock)
Study lead Peter Douglas, associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine at UT Southwestern, suggested that these discoveries “shift the focus toward a neglected side of the metabolic coin – the re-feeding phase.”
“Our data suggest that the health-promoting effects of intermittent fasting are not merely a product of the fast itself, but are dependent on how the metabolic machinery recalibrates during the subsequent transition back to a fed state,” he said.
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“Our findings bridge a gap between lipid metabolism and aging research,” he added. “By targeting aging, the single greatest risk factor for human disease, we move beyond treating isolated conditions toward a preventive model of medicine that enhances quality of life for all individuals.”
Lauri Wright, director of nutrition programs at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, called this a “high-quality” study that adds an “important nuance to how we think about fasting and longevity.”
Intermittent fasting typically involves limiting meals to an eight-hour daily window or fasting every other day. (iStock)
The benefits of the refeeding phase after fasting were “especially interesting,” Wright, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“The researchers showed that longevity was linked to the body’s ability to turn off fat breakdown after fasting, allowing cells to restore energy balance,” she reiterated.
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“From a scientific standpoint, that’s a meaningful shift because it suggests fasting is not just about burning fat, but about metabolic flexibility.”
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Fasting may support longevity through triggering metabolic switching, enhancing cellular repair and stress resistance and improving markers like insulin sensitivity, research shows.
Limitations and cautions
Although this study provides “important insight” on the power of refeeding, Wright noted that the findings should be approached with caution, as the study was done on worms and cannot always be translated to humans.
“Additionally, it explains how a process might work in a controlled lab condition rather than real-world eating behaviors,” she added as a limitation. “Finally, the study is short-term and doesn’t give us the long-term translation on lifespan outcomes.”
The review found intermittent fasting was barely more effective than doing nothing, according to the study authors. (iStock)
Wright cautioned that fasting is “not a magic solution for longevity, and how you eat overall matters more than when you eat.”
“I advise, first and foremost, to focus on diet quality, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and minimally processed foods,” she said.
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For those who are considering fasting, it’s better to stick with a moderate plan — like a 12- to 14-hour overnight fast — rather than going to extremes, Wright said. After fasting, she recommends focusing on well-balanced meals.
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Several groups of people should be cautioned against fasting, according to Wright, including those with diabetes who are on insulin or hypoglycemic medications, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, anyone with a history of eating disorders and older adults at risk of malnutrition.
Anyone considering intermittent fasting should consult with a doctor before starting.
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