Tag: Foreign Aid

Why MAGA Wants to Betray Ukraine

So the federal government wasn’t shut down over the weekend, although we may have to go through this whole drama again in six weeks. Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, ended up doing the obvious: bringing a funding bill to the floor that could pass only with Democratic votes, because the hard-liners in his […]

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Inside McCarthy’s Shutdown Turnabout That Left His Speakership at Risk

Speaker Kevin McCarthy began the final day before a government shutdown pinned against the ropes, facing dim prospects of passing any stopgap funding measure to avert the crisis that was to go into effect when the clock struck 12:01 a.m. on Sunday. He ended it still on the ropes, having bucked expectations and passed a […]

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For Biden, Menendez’s Troubles May Clear Foreign Policy Roadblocks

When the Biden administration relaxed some travel restrictions on Americans visiting Cuba in May of last year, Senator Robert Menendez was having none of it. “I am dismayed,” Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said in a statement. Anyone who believed the measure might help bring democracy to Cuba was “simply in a state of […]

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Soft Corruption and the Limits of Populism

There are currently two clown shows — sorry, but let’s be honest — going on in the Republican Party. One is the intraparty fighting that seems extremely likely to cause a government shutdown a few days from now. The other is the fight over who will come a distant second to Donald Trump in the […]

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Money for Ukraine at Center of Senate Bid to Avert Shutdown

With the House in chaos over its spending plans, senators of both parties were deep in negotiations on Monday over efforts to head off a government shutdown this weekend through a stopgap measure and whether to include additional aid to Ukraine in the legislation. Senators and senior staff members engaged in intense discussions over the […]

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Egypt, Senator Menendez and U.S. Aid

After decades as one of the world’s largest recipients of United States foreign aid, the Egyptian government was nervous about how long the largess would continue at that level. But when the United States cut a sliver of the aid in 2017 over Egypt’s grim human rights record, stunning Cairo, Egyptian officials found an ally […]

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Gold Bullion and Halal Meat: Inside the Menendez Investigation

It was January 2018, and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey had just won a huge legal victory. His trial on federal bribery charges had ended in a hung jury, and the U.S. Justice Department had announced that it would not seek a new trial. He was free to walk with no criminal conviction, ready […]

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In Washington Visit, Zelensky Will Try to Shore Up Critical Support

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine plans to make his second wartime visit to Washington on Thursday, meeting with President Biden and congressional lawmakers as he tries to preserve his country’s most critical source of funding and weapons. Mr. Biden will be looking to get a “battlefield perspective” on the war from Mr. Zelensky, said John […]

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How to Make Russia Really Pay for Invading Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Washington this week to give thanks to the United States for its generosity — while asking for $24 billion more, which is what the Biden administration is seeking from Congress in additional military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. That will bring the total amount of American aid to $135 billion, which […]

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Zelensky to Make a Case for More Aid in U.S. Visit

A hero’s welcome awaited President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on his first trip to the United States after Russia’s full-scale invasion, which came on the heels of two back-to-back military advances that showcased Ukrainian momentum to the West. Mr. Zelensky spoke to a joint session of Congress last December, highlighting the successes and appealing for […]

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Pledging to End World Hunger Between Bites of Steak

World leaders will gather this coming week at the United Nations and proclaim their passion for ending poverty and hunger around the globe. In that week, approximately 90,000 children under the age of 5 will die, mostly of preventable causes. As leaders discuss their goal to end hunger, over steak, children will be starving — […]

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How to Support Ukraine Beyond the Next Election

A heated and sometimes nasty debate is raging over how to end the war in Ukraine, intensified by the less-than-hoped-for advances of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and shifting American support for continuing aid to the country. A CNN survey released on Aug. 4 found that among liberals, 69 percent back more funding, but only 31 percent […]

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Coups Are on the Rise. Why?

Following the news lately is enough to make one wonder if coups might be contagious. Military leaders seized power in Gabon on Aug. 30, adding it to a list of at least seven African countries — including Niger just a few weeks earlier — that have experienced military takeovers in the last three years. The […]

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Can Samantha Power Win the Battle for Ukraine’s Future?

*** The administration’s loudest critics think not. “Biden Is Sending Our Treasures to Corrupt Oligarchs,” was the title of a Tucker Carlson screed on Fox News in early April, shortly before his own oligarch sent him packing. Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican presidential candidate, has suggested that President Biden’s support for Ukraine is somehow connected to […]

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What We Know About the Earthquake That Devastated Morocco

A powerful earthquake struck Morocco on Friday night, killing and injuring thousands of people and devastating rural towns near the southwestern city of Marrakesh, one of the deadliest quakes in the country in decades, according to the Moroccan authorities. Dozens of countries have offered assistance, but the government has been slow to allow international aid […]

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After Morocco Earthquake, Frustration Fuels Solidarity

The line of eight vehicles made its way up the dirt road shuttling loaves of bread, folded sweaters, antibiotics and a warm sense of solidarity up to the broken mountain. An hour up the road into the Atlas Mountains from the provincial capital of Taroudant, the caravan came to stop in a darkened village that […]

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Aid Trickles In to Moroccans Stranded by Quake, but Desperation Mounts

Government rescue workers began to reach some devastated mountain villages in Morocco on Monday, but many more settlements were waiting desperately for help, three days after the country was hit by the strongest earthquake in the area in more than a century. In the town of Amizmiz at the foot of the High Atlas Mountains […]

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As Ukraine Aid Benefits Their Districts, Some House Republicans Oppose It

By early next year, this city best known for being the rodeo capital of Texas is on track to become a centerpiece of the American effort to increase artillery production vital to the war in Ukraine. A hulking new plant going up next to a highway exchange not far from downtown Mesquite promises to nearly […]

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