UC Santa Barbara / US Geological Survey / Famine Early Warning Systems Network
Chris Funk is a research director for the Climate Hazards Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a geographer with the US Geological Survey and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
World hunger: What's America's role? Seventy-million people are "food insecure." Famine has been declared already in one country and predicted in three more — in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The UN set a deadline for tomorrow: $4.4 billion for food and water. Less than a tenth has been received despite drought, disease and warfare. The US has led the world in past disaster relief, but President Trump wants massive cuts, and his aides are asking why America should care in the first place. Meantime, humanitarian groups say Africa faces what could be "one of the biggest humanitarian crises since World War II."
President Trump: US to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord Trump says he was elected to serve Pittsburgh, not Paris.
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?