Science
U.S. Terminates Funding for Polio, H.I.V., Malaria and Nutrition Programs Around the World
“People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
The projects terminated include H.I.V. treatment programs that had served millions of people, the main malaria control programs in the worst-affected African countries and global efforts to wipe out polio.
Here are some of the projects that The New York Times has confirmed have been canceled:
A $131 million grant to UNICEF’s polio immunization program, which paid for planning, logistics and delivery of vaccines to millions of children.
A $90 million contract with the company Chemonics for bed nets, malaria tests and treatments that would have protected 53 million people.
A project run by FHI 360 that supported community health workers’ efforts to go door-to-door seeking malnourished children in Yemen. It recently found that one in five children was critically underweight because of the country’s civil war.
All of the operating costs and 10 percent of the drug budget of the Global Drug Facility, the World Health Organization’s main supply channel for tuberculosis medications, which last year provided tuberculosis treatment to nearly three million people, including 300,000 children.
H.I.V. care and treatment projects run by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation that were providing lifesaving medication to 350,000 people in Lesotho, Tanzania and Eswatini, including 10,000 children and 10,000 pregnant women who were receiving care so that they would not transmit the virus to their babies at birth.
A project in Uganda to trace contacts of people with Ebola, conduct surveillance and bury those who died from the virus.
A contract to manage and distribute $34 million worth of medical supplies in Kenya, including 2.5 million monthlong H.I.V. treatments, 750,000 H.I.V. tests, 500,000 malaria treatments, 6.5 million malaria tests and 315,000 antimalaria bed nets.
Eighty-seven shelters that took care of 33,000 women who were victims of rape and domestic violence in South Africa.
A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that operates the only source of water for 250,000 people in camps for displaced people located in the center of the violent conflict in the east of the country.
Pre- and postnatal health services for 3.9 million children and 5.7 million women in Nepal.
A project run by Helen Keller Intl in six countries in West Africa that last year provided more than 35 million people with the medicine to prevent and treat neglected tropical diseases, such as trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis.
A project in Nigeria providing 5.6 million children and 1.7 million women with treatment for severe and acute malnutrition. The termination means 77 health facilities have completely stopped treating children with severe acute malnutrition, putting 60,000 children under the age of 5 at immediate risk of death.
A project in Sudan that runs the only operational health clinics in one of the biggest areas of the Kordofan region, cutting off all health services.
A project serving more than 144,000 people in Bangladesh that provided food for malnourished pregnant women and vitamin A to children.
A program run by the aid agency PATH, called REACH Malaria, which protected more than 20 million people from the disease. It provided malaria drugs to children at the start of the rainy season in 10 countries in Africa.
A project run by Plan International that provided drugs and other medical supplies, health care, treatment of malnutrition programming, and water and sanitation for 115,000 displaced or affected by the conflict in northern Ethiopia.
More than $80 million for UNAIDS, the United Nations agency, which funded work to help countries improve H.I.V. treatment, including data collection and watchdog programs for service delivery.
The President’s Malaria Initiative program called Evolve, which did mosquito control in 21 countries by methods that include spraying insecticide inside homes (protecting 12.5 million people last year) and treating breeding sites to kill larvae.
A project providing H.I.V. and tuberculosis treatment to 46,000 people in Uganda, run by the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation, Uganda.
Smart4TB, the main research consortium working on prevention, diagnostics and treatment for tuberculosis.
The Demographic and Health Surveys, a data collection project in 90 countries that were crucial and sometimes the only sources of information on maternal and child health and mortality, nutrition, reproductive health and H.I.V. infections, among many other health indicators. The project was also the bedrock of budgets and planning.
Science
Video: Crowds Flood New York City Streets for First Day of Manhattanhenge
new video loaded: Crowds Flood New York City Streets for First Day of Manhattanhenge

By James McManagan
May 29, 2026
Science
Oxnard man smuggled baby crocodiles, among 1,700 reptiles, gets 5 years
An Oxnard man has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for smuggling at least 1,700 reptiles worth more than $739,000 into the U.S. over six years, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.
The animals, including baby crocodiles and Yucatán box turtles, were bought and sold over social media and came from Mexico, Hong Kong and elsewhere, an investigation led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revealed.
From January 2016 to February 2022, Perez and co-conspirators brought in wild animals without the permits required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — and without declaring them, the Justice Department said.
In August 2022, Jose Manuel Perez pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of smuggling goods into the country and one count of wildlife trafficking.
The animals smuggled from Mexico were advertised on social media, with defendants posting photos and videos of the reptiles being captured in the wild.
People working with Perez would collect the reptiles including Mexican box turtles and Mexican beaded lizards, at from an airport in Ciudad Juárez, then move them by car over the border to El Paso.
According to federal authorities, Perez paid people a “crossing fee” each time they traversed the border. Payment depended on how many animals they trafficked, the size of the package and the level of risk they faced.
Sometimes Perez and another person would traveled to Mexico to buy animals taken from the wild to smuggle into the U.S. Once shipped, they were transported to Perez’s home, in Missouri and then California after he moved there.
When the sentence came down, Perez was already serving nine years for felony possession of firearms. Due to convictions in Ventura County Superior Court for “street terrorism” and assault with a deadly weapon, he is not allowed to have firearms, the department said.
According to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, illegal wildlife trafficking is the second-largest threat to species after habitat loss and the world’s fourth-most-lucrative trafficking industry.
“Illegal wildlife trafficking not only diminishes the populations of targeted wildlife species, it also impacts related species, their interconnected ecosystem, local and global economies, and has the potential to impact the health of people through zoonotic disease transmission,” the alliance says on its website.
Reptiles get caught in the fray. Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced that a Daly City man suspected of purchasing and exporting hundreds of poached turtles from Florida was facing federal wildlife trafficking charges.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of California and a section of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, assisted federal wildlife officials with the investigation into Perez’s dealings. The case was prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Science
Video: Blue Origin Rocket Explodes on Florida Launchpad
new video loaded: Blue Origin Rocket Explodes on Florida Launchpad
transcript
transcript
Blue Origin Rocket Explodes on Florida Launchpad
A rocket built by the Jeff Bezos-owned space company, Blue Origin, blew up during a test at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
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“Oh, no, that’s an explosion.” (explosion erupts) “That is crazy.” “What?” “Oh, my God!”

By Nailah Morgan
May 29, 2026
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