Former USAID head calls for Cabinet-level department for global aid

Andrew Natsios, the Republican former USAID administrator under George W. Bush, says USAID’s Disaster Assistance Response Team helped stop the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. More than 100 professionals worked with health ministries and NGOs in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea after 11,000–12,000 people had died; Médecins Sans Frontières said only the United States could halt the outbreak. Natsios contrasts that operation with State Department “DART teams” of three people. He says USAID’s emergency-response bureau lost most of its 500 staff, including experts, logisticians, and the training system needed to deploy such teams.

Natsios says eliminating USAID infuriates him because the agency had corrected its mistakes and ranked third among the best-run federal agencies in an independent study. He argues that foreign aid should not simply be moved into the State Department, whose diplomatic programs favor short-term, visible results rather than sustainable development. His proposed replacement is a cabinet-level Department of International Development with a seat at National Security Council meetings, able to offer the president advice distinct from State or Defense. It would absorb USAID programs, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Development Finance Corporation, CDC international programs, and possibly the Peace Corps.

Natsios argues that USAID’s “soft power” improved lives while showing that the United States was humanitarian as well as military, helping diplomats, the armed forces, and American businesses. He says private companies invested $62 billion in aid projects to strengthen supply chains. Aid, in his formulation, counters famine, epidemics, tyranny and chaos, and extreme destitution—problems that drive migration and instability. He cites Central American anti-gang programs, famine-related migration, and his family’s experience during Greece’s World War II famine. He also traces U.S. aid to Alexander Hamilton, Herbert Hoover, and the Marshall Plan, which both saved lives and checked communism.

The program introduces Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas’s “La Línea,” from her forthcoming 2026 album Norteña. Singing in Spanish, Venegas describes a capricious line separating her from someone she wants to reach, then promises to keep singing until she returns. The segment connects the song to Venegas’s upbringing in Tijuana and her embrace of Norteña music and the accordion. The host translates the central image as a line that has divided their world for a long time, framing the song as a reflection on both literal borders and the emotional lines people create between one another.

Sand expert Arnaud van der Velpen says 50–100 trucks collect sand daily from Sierra Leone’s Hamilton beach. The money funds schools, sewers, and roads, but miners operate without licenses, and the Western Area coastline has lost more than 300 meters—roughly three soccer pitches—in 20–25 years. Erosion increases storm-surge vulnerability, saltwater intrusion, and the loss of fisheries, turtle nesting, and tourism, leaving residents more dependent on year-round sand mining. Hamilton has invested some proceeds in tourism, but that still deepens its dependence. Van der Velpen says authorities must regulate extraction, develop quarries and alternative materials, and involve communities rather than abruptly cutting off urban construction.

After a previous study found some of the world’s highest public PFAS blood levels among 49 people living near a chemical factory in northern England, researchers faced a basic problem: the UK lacks data on ordinary population exposure. Scientists had compared residents’ PFOA levels with a U.S. average of 1.4 nanograms per milliliter. The UK Health Security Agency is now collecting blood and urine samples to establish a national baseline and examine what different exposure levels may mean for long-term health. The agency says PFAS is a broad chemical category, with some substances recognized as carcinogens, and expects initial results in 2027.

Lebanese nurses and doctors have worked through economic collapse, COVID-19, the 2020 Beirut port explosion, and repeated wars. A nurse whose home was struck by three missiles shielded her children, then returned to her hospital the next day because work made her feel alive and needed. Former Health Minister Firas Abiyad describes survivor’s guilt and colleagues killed while responding to emergencies. A Beirut hospital study of 370 medical workers found nearly one in five had scores indicating elevated post-traumatic-stress risk, especially among nurses, women, and lower-income staff. Experienced workers are leaving, while hospitals lack money and mental-health support; one nurse advocate created a private relaxation room and says the system, not just its workers, must become resilient.

Virginia Tech poultry-welfare researcher Leonie Jacobs says Ross 308 “turbo chickens” dominate global production: roughly 80–90% of chickens slaughtered worldwide, and perhaps 97% in the United States, are fast-growing breeds. Selective breeding takes birds from about two ounces to four pounds in a little over a month, reaching processing weight in roughly six weeks. Jacobs says muscle growth outpaces cardiovascular development, contributing to lameness, inactivity, and higher mortality. Denmark is considering a national ban after a documentary showed birds receiving only half the normal nighttime rest, and its nature minister wants an EU ban. Jacobs says replacing them would require rebuilding the production system; she personally avoids chicken because she likes the animals.

Malaysia has almost 200,000 Myanmar refugees registered with the UN and perhaps tens of thousands more unregistered, but immigration raids now occur across workplaces and streets. Rights advocate Yap Leisheng says about 10,000 undocumented migrants have been repatriated since January, even though Myanmar’s civil war has killed more than 100,000 and displaced over 3 million. A Shan woman says she fled after criticizing the military and fears arrest, detention, or conscription if returned. Malaysia says returns are voluntary, but it bars UN screening; activists describe overcrowded, filthy detention centers. Political scientist Shaza Shukri says Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is courting Malay voters and a far-right opposition before the 2028 election, using refugees for electoral advantage.

Mexican-born singer-songwriter Andrea Bejar says her album In Bloom is a musical diary about womanhood, aging, and anticipating loss. Its opening Spanish lullaby, “Quédate un ratito más,” was inspired by her grandmother, whom Bejar saw only occasionally after moving from Mexico City to Miami at age three; she says she has feared losing her grandmother since childhood. Bejar writes more honestly and introspectively in English, while using Spanish for whimsical love stories. “Wild Woman” celebrates divine femininity and women’s connection to the earth. “Tell Me I’m Beautiful” addresses women’s fear of becoming invisible or less desirable with age, a fear she sees in her mother, grandmother, and sister.