December 21, 2025 · View in browser

Justine Paul was accused of killing his girlfriend, Eunice Whitman. In Alaska’s slow-motion criminal justice system, he was kept behind bars even as the evidence against him fell apart.

Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester have been investigating the deadly fallout from U.S. foreign aid cuts in Africa. Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death in Kenya. 

Here’s what you need to know from their reporting:

• A Man-Made Crisis: Trump officials were warned repeatedly that cutting off food aid to refugees in Kenya would lead to violence and death. They did so anyway, and thousands starved.

• Reduced Rations: To make the dwindling funds last, aid workers cut rations this summer to the point that half the camp received no food at all, forcing people to make impossible choices.

• A New Deal: The U.S. has since released some funds that will allow workers to keep distributing food through at least March, though rations are still drastically reduced. 

In response to a detailed list of questions, a senior State Department official insisted that no one had died as a result of foreign aid cuts. The official also said that the U.S. still gives the World Food Program hundreds of millions a year and that the administration is shifting to investments that will better serve both the U.S. and key allies like Kenya over time. 

“We just signed a landmark health agreement with Kenya,” the official said, pointing to recent endorsements by government officials there. “That’s going to transform their ability to build their domestic capacity, to take care of their populations, to improve the quality of health care in Kenya.”

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