Gaza not covered in announcement and will be handled on separate track, says US state department official The United States on Monday pledged $2bn in assistance to tens of millions of people facing hunger and disease in more than a dozen countries next year, part of what it said was a new mechanism for the delivery of life-saving assistance following major foreign aid cuts by the Trump administration. The US slashed its aid spending this year, and leading western donors such as Germany also pared back assistance as they pivoted to increased defense spending, triggering a severe funding crunch for the UN. The billions of dollars in assistance pledged by Washington on Monday will be overseen by the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, the state department said, under what it described as new model of assistance agreed with the UN that aims to make aid funding and delivery more efficient and increase accountability for the spending of funds. Continue reading...

Some species officially bid us farewell this year. They may have long been gone, but following more recent assessments, they’re now formally categorized as extinct on the IUCN Red List, considered…