Major reform on how the US gives money to other countries is breezing through the House with bipartisan support.
Today’s Congress is not exactly a well-oiled machine. Even picking a speaker has proven to be incredibly difficult for the House, which took as many floor votes on the matter in 2023 alone as in the previous 36 years combined.
But there’s one issue in which Congress has shown a surprising facility for bipartisan, bicameral cooperation: foreign aid.
Last year saw a historic deal to greatly increase funding for global health efforts, especially those targeting AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis — which together kill some 2.5 million people a year — as well as new bipartisan legislation introduced to reform the way the US Agency for International Development (USAID), America’s leading foreign aid agency, works.
2024 promises more bipartisan collaboration on the issue. This past week, Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) and Cory Mills (R-FL) and Sens. Christopher Coons (D-DE), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) introduced the Locally-Led Development and Humanitarian Response Act, another measure to reform USAID. Introduced in the House on March 19, it already passed the Foreign Affairs Committee by a unanimous voice vote on March 20.
The bill is meant to push USAID to distribute more of its budget to local groups in the countries where it works. The basic case for using more local groups is simple. US aid spending currently goes largely to a small group of very large contractors that are insulated from evaluation and tend toward bloated programs.
Giving the money instead to small local organizations would not only help develop civil society in developing countries, but likely achieve better outcomes at a lower cost. A recent review by development research group the Share Trust estimated that funding aid through local groups is roughly 32 percent more cost-effective than funding groups based in rich countries, largely because salaries and overhead in rich countries are significantly higher.
This isn’t new: USAID administrators going back decades have promised more funding for local programs. Raj Shah, Obama’s first USAID administrator, had a push called “Local Solutions.” Mark Green, who led the agency under Trump, had the New Partnership Initiative, with similar goals.
Local funding, however, is still the exception. The agency distributed $38.8 billion in fiscal year 2022, or about $30 billion excluding Ukraine aid. But that same year, only 10.2 percent of funds went to local partners: “organizations, firms, and individuals based in the countries in which we work.” Current administrator Samantha Power has pledged to increase that share to 25 percent by next year and 50 percent by 2030, ambitious targets that will be challenging to hit.
The Locally-Led Development and Humanitarian Response Act is meant to move toward that goal by clearing out red tape, some of it imposed by past acts of Congress, to make it easier for small local organizations to apply for support from USAID. Specifically, it:
- Lets groups apply for money in languages other than English, sparing them translation costs
- Grants more flexibility in accounting systems, so groups using systems common outside the US can still apply
- Allowing late registrations on the System for Award Management, a federal government-wide platform for paying vendors
- Lets USAID missions restrict bids to local groups on projects costing up to $25 million; currently only projects under $5 million can be restricted to local groups
- Increases the share of grants allowed to be spent on administrative costs/overhead from 10 percent to 15 percent
The last bit, allowing higher overhead charges, may seem on its face like a problem. After all, money spent on overhead is money not spent on direct aid. But the change is meant to address an inequity in how local organizations are currently treated compared to big contractors.
Right now, small local groups “only really get 10 percent of the contract for overhead,” Rep. Jacobs said in an interview, “whereas big organizations negotiate larger overhead costs and get more money for overhead.” Boosting the share to 15 percent is meant to provide an equal playing field.
Erin Collinson, director of policy outreach at the Center on Global Development and a development policy expert not involved in drafting the bill, argues it would be a real step forward, highlighting the changes to the overhead rate (technically called the “de minimis indirect cost rate”) as significant. “These are very much things that the agency is trying to work through,” she said of the bill’s provisions. “It sends the right kinds of signals that Capitol Hill is on board with this.”
The bill has considerable civil society backing from groups like Catholic Relief Services and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network and is recent enough that I was not able to find any outright opponents. Existing vendors have natural reasons to fear the legislation, but they could also scheme to work around it.
Jacobs raised the prospect of large contractors hiring a token number of foreign workers, changing their names, incorporating small subsidiaries, and similar moves, to try to claim money being reserved for local groups. She concedes that USAID and Congress will have to exercise constant oversight to prevent these incumbent firms from undermining the reform.
But with the bill already through its House committee and garnering the backing of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in both houses already, Jacobs is optimistic. “We think it has a really good shot of becoming law this year,” Jacobs said. “I know many people don’t think we can get anything done. Hopefully, this is one proof point that we can still do some big things.”
All signs point to ISIS in a terrorist attack that killed over 130 people near Moscow, but Vladimir Putin is connecting it to the war in Ukraine
Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in decades may not be directly related to the ongoing war in Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have implications for the future of that conflict. In fact, the horrific attack has already become one more battle in the ongoing information war between Russia, Ukraine, and Ukraine’s western allies, including the US. The nature and timing of the attack, as well as its alleged perpetrators, have all combined to make this tragedy fertile ground for conspiracy theories and motivated reasoning.
At least 133 people were killed in the attack on the Crocus City Hall theater just outside Moscow on Friday, where a concert by the veteran Russian rock band Piknik was happening. A group of gunmen wearing tactical gear and carrying automatic weapons shot concertgoers and set fire to the building. Grisly videos circulating on social media seen by Vox show the attackers firing on defenseless people crouched on the ground.
With over 100 people wounded, the death toll is likely to rise, but it is already higher than the 132 people killed in the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis – an event with which it shared some disturbing resemblances – and is likely to be the second-worst terrorist attack in Russian history after the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis in the country’s North Caucasus region, which resulted in more than 300 deaths.
The Islamic State terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the attack and US intelligence officials have said they believe it was specifically the work of the group’s Afghan affiliate, the Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K). (Khorasan refers to a historic region that includes parts of modern Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkmenistan.)
The US embassy in Moscow had issued a warning on March 7 advising US citizens to avoid large gatherings due to reports that “extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts.” Russian authorities also claimed earlier this month to have foiled an ISIS attack on a synagogue in Moscow.
In a video statement released Saturday, President Vladimir Putin said that 11 people have been arrested, including the four perpetrators of the attack, who had fled the scene. Authorities in Moscow say the four were not Russian citizens.
Colin Clarke, a terrorism analyst with the Soufan Center, said that evidence suggested the four gunmen had experience and training. “If you look at the videos of this attack, the way that they shot, and even the spacing between them when they carry out the attacks, it’s clear they were well trained,” Clarke told Vox. “It doesn’t seem like these were just local guys who were imbibing ISIS propaganda and decided to do something. I would put money on them being trained in Afghanistan.”
Why would an ISIS offshoot attack Russia? Islamist extremist groups like ISIS-K have long-standing grievances against Moscow dating back to the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as well as the Russian Federation’s brutal counterinsurgency campaigns in Chechnya and the North Caucasus in the 1990s and 2000s and its support for Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria. More recently, ISIS-K carried out a suicide attack targeting the Russian embassy in Kabul in 2022.
The simple explanation that ISIS was responsible would be an inconvenient one for Putin. It would mean that he had ignored the US warning of an imminent attack, which at the time he dismissed as “blackmail” intended to destabilize Russian society. (In fairness, he would definitely not be the only world leader to recently ignore such a warning.)
It would also be another instance, along with the remarkable detailed US warnings of Russian war plans ahead of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when America’s spies seemed to know more about what was happening in Russia than Putin’s own security services.
So it’s not that surprising that Russian authorities are already assigning blame elsewhere.
Moscow points at Ukraine
In his statement, Putin hinted that the attack was linked to Ukraine, saying that the suspects had been detained in the western Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, and “where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the border.”
The Russian government has not presented any evidence of a link. None of the videos that are circulating of the detained suspects — which include a particularly grisly one in which guards appear to cut a prisoner’s ear off — include any mention of Ukraine.
There are also some indications the suspects might actually have been fleeing to Belarus, which also borders Byransk. Reporting by the Latvia-based Russian opposition news site Meduza reported, citing state media employees, said that Russian news outlets have been instructed to emphasize possible Ukrainian involvement in the attacks.
Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement, with Mykhailo Podolyak, an senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tweeting, “Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with” the attacks. He added: “Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods. It is always pointless.”
Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s military intelligence services had gone farther than that, posting a statement calling the attacks “a planned and deliberate provocation by the Russian special services at the behest of Putin. Its purpose is to justify even tougher strikes on Ukraine and total mobilization on Russia.”
The statement noted that the attacks come shortly after Putin’s reelection as president and just hours after the publication of an interview in which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had described the conflict in Ukraine as a “war” for the first time, rather than the Russian government’s preferred euphemism: special military operation. In other words, the attacks would be used to justify a new more brutal phase of the war for Putin’s new term in office.
Post-fact warfare
To be clear: there is little evidence to suggest at this point that the attacks were planned by Kyiv or were a “false flag” operation by Russia. It seems far more likely that ISIS, the group that has claimed responsibility and has shown itself in the past to have both the means and motivation to pull off precisely this kind of attack, was the actual perpetrator. In addition to the attempted Moscow synagogue attack, a pair of ISIS-K suicide bombings killed nearly 100 people in the Iranian city of Kerman in January.
But there are several reasons why it will be particularly easy for partisans on both sides in the Ukraine-Russia war to believe whatever they want.
First: while Ukraine has never targeted Russian civilians like this and would risk losing all of its international support if it did so, officials like intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov have been fairly open about helping, though not actively coordinating with, anti-Putin Russian militant groups like the Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia legion. Both groups have carried out raids in Ukraine-Russia border regions, including in recent weeks.
Some of the leaders of these groups have extremist ties of the far-right variety, rather than to Islamists. Some Russian media outlets have also suggested the Russia Volunteer Corps may have been involved in the Crocus attack, though the group has denied it. Still, the notion of Ukraine backing militant attacks on Russian soil will not seem far-fetched to Russians nor to their international supporters.
On the other side, those suggesting it was a Kremlin inside job will point to the widespread allegations, with some compelling evidence, that it was the Russian government that was behind a series of apartment bombings in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen separatists.
Those bombings, which caused the deaths of more than 300 people in total, provided a pretext for Russia’s second war in Chechnya and were a key event in the political rise of then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The Russian government was also accused by Western intelligence services of orchestrating so-called “false flag” attacks in eastern Ukraine to justify the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The Russian government already appears to be using Ukraine’s supposed involvement for propaganda value. “If it is established that these are terrorists of the Kyiv regime…All of them must be found and mercilessly destroyed as terrorists, including officials of the state that committed such an atrocity,” said former president and frequent Kremlin attack dog Dmitry Medvedev.
But as Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at King College London, noted, “The fact that the Kremlin will use the attack for political purposes does not mean it was a false flag.”
The attack has also focused an enormous amount of attention on the US embassy warning from earlier this month. US intelligence agencies operate under a policy known as “duty to warn” which requires them to warn potential victims, including non-Americans, of imminent lethal threats, as long as it does not compromise sources and methods of intelligence gathering.
There’s no exception for US adversaries: The US privately warned Iran’s government ahead of the ISIS bombings in January. But in this case, many Russian officials and media figures have instead seen the warning as evidence that the US was partly responsible for the attack.
Who is ISIS-K
Finally, the nature of ISIS-K itself lends itself to conspiracy theories.
The group simply doesn’t map neatly onto either the West’s or Russia’s prevailing geopolitical narratives. Yes, the group has now apparently attacked Russia and Iran this year, but before that, its best known attack was a bombing at Kabul’s airport that killed 13 Americans and more than 100 Afghans in the end stages of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Just a few days ago, German authorities arrested two Afghan ISIS supporters allegedly planning an attack on the Swedish parliament.
Rather than taking sides in the clash between Russia and the west, ISIS’s propaganda has welcomed the war in Ukraine as the opening salvo in “crusader against crusader wars” that they hope will help destroy all their enemies.
“If you think about Iran, the US, and Russia, we’re always talking about great power competition, but ISIS hates all of those countries for different reasons,” Clarke said. Similarly, after the attack in Iran in January, Iran initially blamed the US and Israel despite ISIS claiming responsibility and the group’s long history of targeting Iran.
All of these factors contribute to a situation where it can feel like, as the title of a prominent book on Russia’s media environment puts it, “nothing is true and anything is possible.”
In normal times, the Russian state would be expected to carry out a brutal campaign of retaliation against the group responsible for the attack, as it did in the Caucasus after previous attacks. Right now, however, thanks to the war in Ukraine, Russia’s military and security services have little manpower to spare. So we get Medvedev’s threats against Ukraine and other Russian officials calling for the country to reinstate the death penalty.
Even if ISIS was responsible for the attacks — and there’s every indication that they were —Ukrainians as well as Putin’s remaining opponents inside Russia are more likely to be targeted by the Kremlin’s response.
How come there’s never been an Asian Bachelorette?
For the first time in years, The Bachelor franchise had not one, not two, but multiple contestants of Asian descent who were prominent contenders.
Historically, there have been a handful of Asian participants who have made it to later rounds in the show. But in most seasons, there are few — if any — Asian contestants across both The Bachelor and Bachelorette. Those who are cast are often eliminated early, sidelined as supporting characters, or reduced to meek stereotypes. Tammy Ly, a fan favorite from the 24th season, has spoken about how she felt “alienated” by the franchise and treated as a secondary character because she didn’t fit a white ideal of beauty.
The Bachelor franchise has long been critiqued for its overwhelmingly white casting, storylines that amplify discriminatory tropes, and high-profile contestants who’ve made racist statements. In recent seasons, the show has attempted to address these disparities — with mixed results. Notably, ABC cast its first Black Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay, in 2017, and it has sought to diversify its contestant pool in the years since. As Rachel Lindsay and other contestants have emphasized, however, the changes to casting alone haven’t been sufficient to combat systemic issues the franchise suffers from, onscreen and behind the scenes.
The most recent season, its 28th, revealed how The Bachelor still struggles with many of these problems even as it took some small steps forward. In showcasing a diverse group of Asian women, the show introduced new perspectives on everything from growing up in an immigrant household to cultural family traditions, viewpoints that haven’t been highlighted much on its platform. It still fell short, however, in grappling with the discrimination that its contestants of color face and confronting conversations about the need to explicitly call out racism.
Five women of Asian descent stayed late into the current season as both popular contenders and villains. Notably, a few of these women — Rachel Nance, an ICU nurse from Hawaii, of Filipino and African American descent; and Jenn Tran, a physician’s assistant student from Florida, of Vietnamese descent — were among the final six contestants, a development that makes it more likely that one of them could get picked as the lead for a following season. (Typically, the show selects its next star based on the women or men who don’t “win” from the prior season.)
Featuring more Asian contestants on the show — and highlighting them — has not only helped dispel stereotypes, but also enabled portrayals that were more multidimensional and human. Having an Asian lead — a long overdue first for both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette — would bring even more representation to the reality TV giant, expand the universe of stories that it tells, and provide new visibility to members of a group that have long been underrepresented in media.
Telling people’s stories counters stereotypes and humanizes them
The Bachelor franchise’s history of quickly dropping candidates of color, including Asian contestants, is so well-known it has spurred satirical spinoffs like WongFu Production’s “Asian Bachelorette,” in which nearly all the contestants are of Asian descent.
In past seasons, there were usually one or two Asian contestants, though few advanced to later episodes, with Catherine Giudici, Ivan Hall, Caila Quinn, Ethan Kang and Serena Pitt among the handful of exceptions.
Additionally, if they aren’t eliminated early, contestants of color typically get less screen time than white contestants. And when they have appeared, some of their storylines have exacerbated old tropes, including ideas of Asian women as docile or hypersexual.
In season 24 of The Bachelor, for example, Marylynn Sienna is effectively used by a white woman named Victoria Larson to advance her storyline. Larson arbitrarily accuses Marylynn of being “toxic,” forcing her to defend herself in the face of a bully. In Season 10 of The Bachelor, a Cambodian American woman named Channy Choch debuted on the show by inviting the lead to have sex with her in Cambodian, later noting that he needed to catch “Cambodian fever.”
By putting real time and investment into Asian contestants’ storylines, this season has delivered more nuanced depictions of their experiences and the chance to see more humanized narratives.
Rachel’s hometown date with Bachelor Joey Graziadei, a milestone that takes place near the end of the season when the lead meets a contestant’s family, was a vibrant glimpse of how Filipino and Hawaiian culture have shaped her. Prior to the visit, Rachel informs Joey that he should touch her mother’s hand to his forehead when they meet, a gesture known as “Mano po,” which conveys respect. And during the date, Rachel’s family warmly receives him with a roast pig in the backyard and schools him on a Filipino courtship tradition.
@bachelornationabc Joey with the Mano Po
♬ original sound - The Bachelor
Rachel has also discussed her upbringing in Hawaii as a mixed-race person, offering a perspective that’s rarely been highlighted on the show, and emphasizing how her family has blended different cultures. “Growing up as a mixed girl in Hawaii, there wasn’t many people who looked like me on TV,” she said in a People interview. “I’m very honored that moving forward, girls can say, ‘Hey, if Rachel can do that, I can do that. If Rachel can speak her truth, I can speak her truth.’”
Another moving moment this season centered on Jenn and her description of the trauma she experienced growing up in a dysfunctional household. In one scene, Jenn spoke candidly about the conflict in her immigrant family, prompting what she’s said has been an outpouring from fans who have similar backgrounds. While on a one-on-one date with Joey, Jenn described how her parents often had volatile fights when she was a kid and how her relationship with her father has deteriorated in the years since as a result.
“I wanna acknowledge the comments and DMs I’ve been getting from people who say that they can relate to my story and I just want to say that I’m so sorry you can relate,” Jenn said in a TikTok post. “It felt so nice to hear another Viet woman go through the same generational trauma that I went through,” one of the top commenters on the post wrote.
@jenntranx Toxic relationships is something i really want to talk about bc often times we dont know we’re in one bc it creeps up on you but i want everyone to know theyre deserving of love and to not let history repeat itself #toxic #toxicrelationship #emotionalabuse #abuse #relationships #relationshipadvice
♬ original sound - Jenn Tran
Both Nance and Tran also received “hot seats,” or special interviews, in the recent “Women Tell All” episode, often a sign ABC is considering them as potential leads. Nance was known on the show for her level-headed energy, commitment to her career, and “slow burn” relationship with Joey, while Tran’s bubbly personality, openness to adventure, and a playful connection were her signature. Both women, who were eliminated in recent weeks, were charismatic contenders and would be compelling future stars.
Being able to see an array of Asian women depicted this season was significant as well because it highlighted a wide spectrum of personalities. In addition to Rachel and Jenn, who were portrayed more prominently as frontrunners focused on vying for Joey’s affections, Katelyn DeBacker, a radiochemist from New Mexico of Vietnamese descent, was seen as bringing her quirk and humor to the show, and Madina Alam, a therapist of Bangladeshi descent, was synonymous with her thoughtful and considerate responses to the bizarre drama swirling around her. Lea Cayanan, an account manager from Hawaii who is of Filipino descent, also received what is known in Bachelor parlance as a “villain edit,” in a way barrier-breaking in itself.
After dueling with fellow contestant Maria Georgas — a white executive assistant from Ontario, Canada — Lea became associated with causing drama and coming off as a “mean girl.” While her actions were far from laudable, it was interesting to see an Asian woman embrace the role of the villain after years of other portrayals as submissive sidekicks. That said, when you distill that storyline to its essence, she was still used to draw a contrast with a white counterpart, a problematic plot point of its own.
It’s uncommon to see Asian women depicted in pop culture in a way that’s more complicated and messy, NPR’s Deepa Shivaram previously wrote about Devi, the protagonist of the Netflix show Never Have I Ever.
Harleen Singh, director of the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, emphasized that representation and the breaking of stereotypes require the chance for people to be their full selves and not just an ideal that’s been set out for them. “It’s … [the ability] to just be human beings who have errors, who have wants, who are contradictory. Pardon my French, but to f*** up as much as anybody else,” Singh previously told NPR.
Contestants have also forced discussions about racism
Asian contestants have also used their platforms to force conversations about racism that would otherwise be left poorly addressed by a franchise ill-equipped to confront them.
One of the early examples of this was tied to a mistake that The Bachelor’s social media accounts made in January, when it tagged the wrong Asian person in an Instagram post. In a photo of Jenn kissing Joey, The Bachelor account instead tagged Lea. That mistake then sparked a discussion about how Asian people have been confused for one another in different settings, including the workplace, and how dehumanizing those errors can be.
In response to the mix-up, Jenn posted a TikTok video sharing an experience of how a nurse she worked with wasn’t able to tell her apart from another Asian staff member, despite having known each other for a year. “The issue at hand is not that you can’t tell me apart from different Asians, it’s the fact that you don’t care,” Jenn said in the video.
@jenntranx This is why Asian representation on TV is so important. The lack of exposure directly correlates to the ignorance. I’m not saying everyone is guilty of cultural ignorance but it is disheartening to see how many news articles about me have used pictures of other Asian women who clearly do not look like me. Let’s continue to take accountability, learn from others and lead with love always #culturalignorance #diversity #asianamerican #asian #culture #vietnamese
♬ original sound - Jenn Tran
It’s a problem that’s so commonplace that designer Linh-Yen Hoang has released a pithy pin that simply reads, “Wrong Asian.” And while people often brush off such actions as honest mistakes, they essentially suggest that Asian people are interchangeable, reaffirming tropes that Asian people are a monolithic group devoid of individuality.
“Whether the person acted without malice, the effect is the same: It erases my body of work for someone else’s, simply because their ancestors were born on the same continent as mine,” Washington Post reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee wrote in 2019. “It tells me that my place in journalism — and that of the other Asian reporter they confused me for — is dispensable, interchangeable and indistinguishable.”
Jenn’s and Lea’s perspectives were ultimately invaluable in having a deeper conversation about this mishap and in drawing attention to a widespread issue that some may write off as trivial. “Until we have a world stage and a media platform that is representative of the world we come from and the communities that make it up, I think we will always have a ways to go,” Lea stated in her response.
During the “Women Tell All” episode, Rachel also spoke about racism she’s faced from viewers of the show, revealing that people have bombarded her with messages calling her the “N-word” and “jungle Asian.” Many of these attacks came after Rachel was chosen to move forward as one of the final three contestants instead of Maria, who has accrued a large fanbase.
Rachel’s comments have renewed attention to the racism within the Bachelor fandom and the harassment that contestants of color, in particular, have faced.
That conversation showed, too, how much work the show still needs to do to protect its contestants and to thoughtfully handle the subject. Rather than specifically addressing the racism that Rachel experienced, for instance, host Jesse Palmer quickly pivoted to asking the rest of the cast if they had received “hateful” comments in a follow-up to her remarks. In doing so, he glossed over the specific racism she was experiencing and sought to broaden the focus to more general harassment that the cast of women has faced.
“It is part of my Asian culture to remain quiet, always be respectful, and apologize first. No more,” Rachel wrote in an Instagram post. “ It is time that we speak up. To all my minorities… speak up and speak loud.”