🎬So...no more aid?

February 05, 2025

Good morning. We’ve all been there—you work tirelessly on a project only to have it flung out the window at the last minute by your boss.

But the plight of Richard Plaud might be on another level. The Frenchman spent eight years creating a 23.6-foot (7-meter) model Eiffel Tower out of 700,000+ matchsticks to set the record for tallest matchstick sculpture. But, the Guinness Book of World Records disqualified it because the matchsticks he used weren’t commercially available. Guinness acknowledged its decision may have been “heavy-handed” and will review the judgment.

Still, Plaud threw shade at London-based Guinness, writing at the time, “Clearly, the English are different...”. Which is exactly what we thought when they first created a book of people with long fingernails.

— Chu Chu Sulley, Edna Akanni, Chibuike Uzor.

CURRENCIES

Currency exchange rates against the US Dollar as of market close. Here’s what these numbers mean

INTERNATIONAL
Musk and Trump move to dismantle USAID

Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

USAID—an independent government organization that provides life-saving foreign aid to other countries—will need some aid to save itself after Elon Musk and President Donald Trump agreed to shut it down. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who stepped in as the agency’s acting administrator on Tuesday, suggested he’d work with Congress to overhaul USAID instead of shuttering it completely.

USAID, in a nutshell, managed roughly $40 billion in fiscal year 2023, less than 1% of the federal budget. It’s been around since 1961, and a large portion of its funding goes to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine and health initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa, including programs that distribute life-saving HIV treatments. For context:

  • Agriculture: This constituted a majority of USAID’s support to Sub-Saharan Africa with over $422 million spent to enhance land tenures and enable easier access to markets for crops in 2022 alone.

  • Health: Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which accounted for around 45% of global malaria deaths in 2021, regularly rank as the leading recipients of U.S. counter-malaria assistance in Africa, a little over $600 million in 2022.

But now that aid’s future, and that of USAID’s 10,000 employees and numerous international contractors are in doubt.

  • Through the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk forced a leadership change and shut staffers out of the agency’s office while railing against USAID on social media.

  • On Monday afternoon, over 100 USAID employees protested outside its Washington headquarters and were joined by Democratic lawmakers.

Zoom out: Musk’s aggressive moves to shutter the agency—something experts say requires a sign-off from the US Congress—have raised questions about the power Trump has handed the world’s richest man since his reelection. —CU.

THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Where was this when we wrote that paper in Uni?

Yesterday, OpenAI announced Deep Research, a tool that can do your Googling for you and gather information on a topic from around the web before synthesizing it into a report. The company said that the AI agent — which is available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers — can handle tasks that would take a human “anywhere from 30 minutes to 30 days” in a taut five to 30 minutes. 

SHOWER THOUGHTS

“If you miss the first step of a staircase on your way down, you often end up missing all the other steps as well.”

WHAT’S NEW
Round the continent

Joseph Stall/DW via Getty Images

  • The M23 rebel group has declared a ceasefire in eastern DR Congo, citing “humanitarian reasons” and a need to return to order.

  • Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s dad mediated a talk over yesterday between South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa and his son.

  • Uganda has launched a clinical trial for an Ebola vaccine following an outbreak of the disease in the country.

  • Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO head has urged countries to pressure Trump into reconsidering his WHO exit.

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