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Trump Says US Aid Agency Should ‘Close’

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President Donald Trump on Friday said USAID should “close,” in an escalation of his already unprecedented campaign to dismantle the massive government aid agency.

THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE. CLOSE IT DOWN!” Trump wrote in a trademark all-caps statement on his Truth Social app.

Trump, who began his second term last month, has launched a crusade led by his top donor and world’s richest man Elon Musk to downsize or dismantle swaths of the US government.

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The most concentrated fire has been on the United States Agency for International Development, the primary organization for distributing US humanitarian aid around the world.

READ ALSO: USAID Staff To Work From Home As Musk Pushes To Shut Down Agency

The Trump administration has ordered thousands of foreign-based staff to return to the United States and frozen foreign aid.

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On Thursday a report in The New York Times said the current USAID headcount of 10,000 employees would be reduced to around 300.

Labor unions are challenging the legality of the onslaught which includes offers of buyouts by Musk to federal workers across the entire government.

READ ALSO: Musk Brands USAID As ‘Criminal Organization’ Amid Row

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Democrats in Congress say it would be unconstitutional for Trump to shut down government agencies without the greenlight from the legislature.

Trump has also announced he wants to close the Department of Education.

The United States’ current budget allocates about $58 billion for international assistance.

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However while Washington is the biggest aid donor in the world, the money has amounted to no more than 0.7 to 1.4 percent of total government spending in the last quarter century, according to the Pew Research Center.

USAID runs health and emergency programs in around 120 countries, including the world’s poorest regions.

READ ALSO: UNICEF, USAID Train 32 Education Managers In Bauchi

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It is seen as a vital source of soft power for the United States in its struggle for influence with rivals including China, where Musk has extensive business interests.

Hard-right Republicans and libertarians have long questioned the need for USAID and criticized what they say is wasteful spending abroad.

Those criticisms have been supercharged since Trump’s return with the administration demonizing USAID employees and claiming — without evidence — that the aid agency is rife with fraud.

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“USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY,” Trump wrote in his post. “SO MUCH OF IT FRAUDULENTLY, IS TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE. THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE.”

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Afghanistan’s Taliban Release US Citizen

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Afghanistan’s Taliban government released an American citizen from detention on Sunday, a week after freeing an elderly British couple.

In a statement, the ministry identified the detainee as Amir Amiri and said he had been handed over to Adam Boehler, Washington’s special envoy on hostages.

Boehler made a rare visit to Kabul earlier this month to discuss the possibility of a prisoner exchange with the Taliban government.

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The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan released an American citizen named Amir Amiri from prison today,” the Foreign Ministry on X, using the official name for the government.

“The Afghan government does not view the issues of citizens from a political angle and makes it clear that ways can be found to resolve issues through diplomacy.”

READ ALSO:Taliban Detains 14 For Playing Music, Singing At Afghanistan Private Gathering

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Little is known about Amiri’s case, as it has not been widely reported.

An official with knowledge of the release said Amiri, who is 36, “had been detained in Afghanistan since December 2024”.

The official added that Amiri would stop briefly in Doha, Qatar for medical checks before continuing back to the United States.

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the release of Amiri, said he had been “wrongfully detained” in Afghanistan, and thanked Qatar for helping to get him freed.

President Donald Trump “has made it clear we will not stop until every American unjustly detained abroad is back home,” Rubio wrote on X.

In January two Americans were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the United States.

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READ ALSO:Taliban Court Publicly Flogs Woman For Illicit Relationship, Running Away From Home

Another American, airline mechanic George Glezmann, was freed after more than two years in detention during a March visit to Kabul by Boehler.

At least one other US citizen, Mahmood Habibi, is being held in Afghanistan. The United States is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

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The Taliban authorities deny any involvement in his 2022 disappearance.

Just a week ago, Britons Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, were released from a Kabul prison after almost eight months in detention. The Taliban authorities did not say why they were detained.

The couple was arrested in February and first held in a maximum security facility, “then in underground cells, without daylight, before being transferred” to the intelligence services in Kabul, UN experts have said.

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READ ALSO:1.4 Million Girls Banned From Afghan Schools Since Taliban Return – UNESCO

The couple married in Kabul in 1970 and have spent almost two decades living in Afghanistan, running educational programmes for women and children. They also became Afghan citizens.

All the releases have been mediated by Qatar.

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Both the US and the UK, like many other Western nations, warn against all travel to Afghanistan.

Russia is the only country to have officially recognised the Taliban government, which has imposed a strict version of Islamic law and been accused of sweeping human rights violations.

Dozens of foreign nationals have been arrested since the group returned to power in August 2021, when most embassies withdrew their diplomatic presence.

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The Taliban government says it wants to have good relations with other countries, notably the United States, despite the 20-year war against US-led forces.

 

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One Dead, Several Injured After US Shooting, Fire At Mormon Church

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One person was killed and several others injured Sunday after a shooter targeted a Mormon church in the US state of Michigan, where the building was also set on fire, authorities said.

The suspect, a 40-year-old man from a nearby town, was shot dead by law enforcement after the attack, police said, without specifying any possible motive.

President Donald Trump called the shooting “horrendous” and said on his Truth Social platform it “appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”

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Images from the scene showed emergency services escorting people on stretchers and a large plume of dark smoke at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township.

READ ALSO:Head Of Mormon Church Is Dead

Local police chief William Renye told reporters the suspect drove his vehicle through the front doors of the church and then began firing at people inside with an assault rifle.

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He said the service was active with “hundreds of people within the church.”

Authorities believe the gunman also deliberately set fire to the church before he was killed by responding police officers, Renye said.

Ten gunshot victims were transported to hospital, including one who has died, the official said.

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READ ALSO:US Lifts Restrictions On Visa Validity For Ghanaians, Leaves Nigeria’s Unchanged

He added that the fire had been extinguished but that “we do believe that we will find additional victims once we have that scene secure.”

A woman who lives near the church told AFP: “My husband heard people screaming, one lady yelling for help.”

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FBI agents are on the scene to assist the investigation, chief Kash Patel said on X.

Violence in a place of worship is a cowardly and criminal act. Our prayers are with the victims and their families during this terrible tragedy,” he wrote.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also said she had been briefed on the incident.

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Head Of Mormon Church Is Dead

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Russell Nelson, who headed the Mormon church since 2018, died on Saturday night at age 101, the church announced.

“With sorrow we announce that Russell M. Nelson, beloved President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away peacefully… at his home in Salt Lake City,” it said in a statement, using the church’s official name.

The former heart surgeon was “the oldest president in the history of the Church,” the statement added, without specifying a cause of death.

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Utah Republican senator Mike Lee lauded Nelson as a “bold, visionary leader prepared by God to testify of Jesus Christ in the very times in which we now live.”

READ ALSO:Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Is Dead

Nelson became the 17th president of the Church in January 2018 at age 93, succeeding Thomas Monson.

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Before becoming president, Nelson successfully pushed for the church to label same-sex married couples as “apostates” and bar their children under the age of 18 from religious rites, including baptisms — though that policy was scrapped after he took on the role.

He also broke with his predecessors and cautioned against using shorthands “LDS” or “Mormons” to refer to the church.

Nelson’s successor will be chosen after his funeral by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who like the church’s president are considered prophets by believers.

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READ ALSO:Brazilian Jazz Legend, Hermeto Pascoal, Is Dead

The religious leader is survived by his wife, eight of his children, 57 grandchildren and more than 167 great-grandchildren, according to the church.

Founded in 1830, the Mormon church considers itself a Christian body, but bases its doctrines on the Book of Mormon, a text purporting to contain a fuller version of the words of Jesus Christ than that recorded in the Bible.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims a total membership of more than 17.5 million people.

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