Signage removed and covered up with tape and plastic sheeting at the U.S. Agency for International Development headquarters in Washington on Friday.

The thousands of people who work for the U.S. government’s main agency for humanitarian aid and disaster relief have been on the front lines of efforts to fight famine, contain virulent infectious diseases like H.I.V. and Ebola, and rebuild infrastructure in impoverished and war-torn countries.

On Friday evening, just hours before the vast majority of them were set to have been suspended with pay or laid off, a court issued a limited, temporary order against the Trump administration’s moves to shut down the agency.

The order was a temporary reprieve to approximately 2,700 direct hires of the U.S. Agency for International Development who were on administrative leave or set to be placed on leave by midnight Friday. For the past two weeks, they and the contractors who work for the agency had been in the throes of a collective panic as the Trump administration began to lay off staff and signaled it planned to decimate the agency.

But the U.S.A.I.D. work force, and the aid industry that relies in large part on the agency’s funding, is still acutely in limbo. On Saturday, U.S.A.I.D. informed employees affected by the order that employees already on administrative leave would be reinstated until the end of Friday, Feb. 14, and that no one else would be suspended with pay during that period, according to a copy of the notice viewed by The New York Times. But those employees could still have to wait for weeks, months, or potentially even longer, for a verdict. The case, which was brought on behalf of unions representing the workers, is expected to go to the Supreme Court, and it is unclear whether the jobs will ever exist again.

The Trump administration’s announcement this week that U.S.A.I.D. would dismiss almost all of its contractors and that most Foreign Service officers and other direct hires would be put on indefinite administrative leave set off a panic around the globe, as Americans posted in missions abroad scrambled to dismantle and reassemble their lives.

The announcement gave Foreign Service officers just 30 days to depart their posts and return to the United States if they wanted the U.S. government to pay for their relocation, forcing nearly the entire diplomatic staff to plan the sort of swift exit that normally only takes place during coups and wars.

Many employees with children had to decide whether to pull them out of school immediately, or leave families behind until the end of the school year. Some with medical conditions, including late-stage and high-risk pregnancies, worried about the dangers of traveling and the status of their health care. Several agonized over what to do about pets, because it was not possible to procure the paperwork necessary to enter the United States in just a few weeks.

The reductions at U.S.A.I.D. appear to have been driven largely by Elon Musk, the tech magnate President Trump deputized to make budget cuts across the government, and Pete Marocco, the State Department’s director of foreign aid, whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio appointed this week to run the day-to-day business of U.S.A.I.D.

Image A clinic in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on Wednesday, after stop-work orders for U.S.A.I.D. programs were sent out. Credit… Sandile Ndlovu for The New York Times

Mr. Rubio, who has assumed overall authority of U.S.A.I.D., tried to tamp down the fears, encouraging people to apply for waivers to delay travel and arguing that the Trump administration was “not trying to be disruptive to people’s personal lives.”

But as stop-work orders and reports of massive cuts at the agency rippled across the global aid industry, and scores of nongovernmental organizations and consulting firms that relied on the agency’s funding laid off staff, the agency’s workers braced for its potential end.

One American posted to a U.S.A.I.D. mission in Africa said that he and his wife, a Foreign Service officer, had both been suspended.

“Two weeks ago we were two gainfully employed people with onward assignments, and now we’ve seen the entire industry decimated and we’re returning to the U.S. without jobs,” he said.

He, like many others, spoke on the condition of anonymity, as those still on the agency’s payroll have been instructed not to publicly discuss the changes underway. Employees fear that flouting the order could jeopardize whatever benefits they might still be eligible for, such as pensions and severance pay — though it was unclear if the Trump administration would honor such obligations.

On Thursday, a subset of U.S.A.I.D. employees began receiving notices that they had been deemed “essential,” meaning they would not be suspended or laid off — for now.

“This is your formal notification that you are expected to keep working, effective immediately, and until notified otherwise,” the emailed notification said, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.

It was not immediately clear how many employees had been deemed essential. On Thursday afternoon, senior U.S.A.I.D. leaders were told that the Trump administration planned to reduce the agency’s staff to about 290, according to three people informed directly about the details of the call. By Friday morning, however, senior agency officials were being told that the number of retained employees was 611, according to two people familiar with the internal guidance.

Some speculated that the number of people retained might climb slightly higher, as bureau and regional leaders fought to preserve as many positions as possible to continue the agency’s lifesaving work.

Either way, the cuts to a work force of more than 10,000 promised to be drastic.

“What is happening is devastating, it’s hard to put it into words, but it’s devastating,” said Maria Carrasco, who had worked for the aid agency or projects abroad it had funded for the last 25 years, she said, before being terminated with other contractors last week. “We are people who put our sweat and tears in to these organizations, because we believe in the ultimate goal of helping people. And now it’s been erased.”

The moves against the U.S.A.I.D. work force began in earnest on Jan. 28, four days after the stop-work orders were issued.

Samantha Cooper, a contractor whose employment was terminated, had been working in maternal and child health and nutrition at the aid agency, and was set to begin a new job this past Monday in the Office of H.I.V./AIDS. Within days, she went from being excited about an upcoming career milestone to straining to make ends meet.

“I’m having to file for unemployment, which doesn’t even cover rent; food stamps, which — that’s fine, it at least gets me groceries,” she said in a telephone interview. Her medical coverage ran out on Friday last week.

Ms. Cooper, who is based in Tulsa, Okla., said she felt luckier than most.

“I have co-workers that are going through I.V.F., and they’ve lost all their benefits; people going through cancer treatments and with parents on hospice — and they were the breadwinners,” she said. “I feel privileged to say this is only what I’m struggling with. I know there are so many others having to deal with that, and it is literally going to break them.”

That was the fear for one Foreign Service officer in Asia who discovered this week that an immediate family member needed to be evacuated for a life-threatening health condition, only to be told by superiors that amid the dissolution of U.S.A.I.D., there was no funding available for emergency medical travel. Their only option, the officer was told, would be to immediately return to the United States, where they have nowhere to live, and leave their belongings and pets behind.

Another Foreign Service officer working at a mission in Africa wrestled with how to break the news to her two young children.

She also worried that she and her spouse, who also works in development, would have to live off the savings they had hoped to put toward a house if they both soon found themselves out of work.

“It just feels like the entire sector is sinking, and so how am I going to find a job?” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, like others, for fear of retaliation. “All I know is development, all I know is public health — I’ve dedicated my life to this. What other skills do I have?”

Image Food aid provided by U.S.A.I.D. in South Sudan in 2023. Credit… Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

The decimation of U.S.A.I.D. has set off a domino effect, as contractors, nongovernmental organizations and consulting firms that rely on funding from the agency for their projects also are forced to make cuts. At least 10,000 American jobs in the sector have already disappeared, according to InterAction, which represents a number of organizations specializing in foreign aid.

“It’s the evisceration of the sector,” Tom Hart, the president and chief executive officer of InterAction, said.

Employees of nongovernmental organizations and companies that rely on U.S.A.I.D. funding said they had effectively been blocked from accessing any funding through the agency’s accounting system, and in some cases, had months of expenses with no guarantee that the federal government would reimburse them.

Resonance, a development consulting firm that employed about 150 people around the world, is an example of a small company taking a big hit. The firm did about 75 percent of its business with U.S.A.I.D. before the contraction. It has bills going back to November that the agency has yet to cover, Steve Schmida, its co-founder, said in an interview.

“We’re being forced to carry a huge amount of cost with no clarity if and when we will get paid or reimbursed,” Mr. Schmida said, adding that he had to lay off almost 90 percent of his U.S.-based staff. He is going without pay for three months to help free up funds to keep his business afloat, he said.

But as news of the drastic staff reductions took hold, he was losing hope that the government would ever cover the funding his firm had been promised.

“It’s just been a catastrophe,” he said of the U.S.A.I.D. cuts, adding: “I think it’s dawning on everyone that this is over.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Bangkok and Chris Cameron from Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Romanian citizen pleaded guilty on Monday to engaging in a plot to use “swatting” calls and bomb threats to intimidate and threaten dozens of people with bogus police emergencies, including a former U.S. president and several members of Congress.

Thomasz Szabo, 26, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 23 by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C.

Szabo was Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia.

Szabo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of making bomb threats.

The two men targeted roughly 100 people with “swatting” calls to instigate an aggressive response by police officers at the victims’ homes, a federal indictment alleges.

A U.S. Secret Service agent’s affidavit doesn’t name the former U.S. president or any other officials identified as victims of the hoax calls.

The two defendants are not explicitly charged in the indictment with threatening a former president, but one of the alleged victims is identified as a “former elected official from the executive branch” who was swatted on Jan. 9. 2024. Radovanovic falsely reported a killing and threatened to set off an explosion at that person’s home, the indictment says.

Szabo told Radovanovic that they should pick targets from both the Republican and Democratic parties because “we are not on any side,” the indictment says.

“This defendant led a dangerous swatting criminal conspiracy, deliberately threatening dozens of government officials with violent hoaxes and targeting our nation’s security infrastructure from behind a screen overseas,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Charges against Radovanovic are still pending. Online court records indicate that he hasn’t made any court appearances in Washington yet.

There was a town hall tonight in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District but no lawmaker to field questions.

Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican, was not expected to attend the event, whose organizers included a former Democratic candidate for the State Assembly. Still, many showed up at the Franklin Public Library to speak out.

“I wanted to share my anger over Rep. Steil,” said Jane Willard, of Rochester. “He’s working for me and for the rest of the Wisconsin citizens in District 1, and I keep reminding him that if he doesn’t do his job, he’s going to lose his job.”

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By Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

46th President of the United States: 2021—2025

The people of Galveston, Texas, have been commemorating Juneteenth since the Civil War ended. Yesterday, in honor of the 160th anniversary, I went there to join them.

You can read about the events of Juneteenth, but there’s nothing quite like going to Galveston and seeing where it all happened.

After General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, Union troops marched across the South for two months, freeing enslaved people along the way. Their final stop was Galveston, an island off the Gulf coast of Texas. There, on June 19, 1865, Union troops went to Reedy Chapel, a church founded in 1848 by enslaved people, and posted a document titled simply “General Order #3.”

“The people of Texas are informed,” it said, “that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

We can only imagine the joy that spread through Galveston – and across the state and nation – on that day and those that followed.

Yesterday, there was once again joy in Galveston, with a parade, picnic, and fireworks. There was also great solemnity, because Juneteenth is a sacred day – a day of weight and power.

The Book of Psalms tells us: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and subjugation, and the promise of that joyful morning to come.

As President, I had the great honor of signing the law declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday. It was our nation’s first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was created in 1983.

Our federal holidays say a lot about who we are as a nation. We have holidays celebrating our independence… the laborers who build this nation… the servicemembers who served and died in its defense.

And now, we also have a national holiday dedicated to the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans.

Signing that law was one of my proudest acts as President.

Yet for 156 years, Juneteenth was not written about in textbooks or taught in classrooms. Still today, there are those who say it does not deserve a holiday. They don’t want to remember the moral stain of slavery and the terrible harm it did to our country.

I’ve always believed that we need to be honest about our history, especially in the face of ongoing efforts to erase it. Darkness can hide much, but it erases nothing. Only with truth can come healing, justice, and repair.

I also believe that it’s not enough to commemorate the past. We must also embrace the obligation we have to the future. As Scripture says, “Faith without works is dead.” And right now, we Americans need to keep the faith and do the work.

In honor of Juneteenth, let’s help people register to vote.

For decades, we fought to expand voting rights in America. Now we’re living in an era when relentless obstacles are being thrown in the way of people trying to vote. We can’t let those tactics defeat us. In America, the power belongs with the people. And the way we show that power is by voting.

So let’s reach out to family, friends and neighbors – especially those who have never voted before. Remind them that with voting, anything is possible. And without it, nothing is possible.

Yesterday in Galveston, we gathered in Reedy Chapel to commemorate Juneteenth, just like people have done for 160 years and counting. We prayed, sang, and read General Order #3 again. The pews were full of families. How many people must have prayed for freedom inside those walls. How many must have sent fervent thanks to God when slavery finally ended.

I remembered the words of my late friend John Lewis. He said, “Freedom is not a state. It is an act.”

Juneteenth did not mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality. It only marked the beginning. To honor the true meaning of Juneteenth, we must continue to work toward that promise. For our freedom. For our democracy. And for America itself.