Transcript of Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges

People around Lubik, Texas, are watching the spread of measles.

Could it grow? Absolutely, it could.

Other places have seen it, too. So what's behind the return of a disease health officials once thought they had eradicated?

I'm Leila Faldil. That's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. It's common for countries like China to criticize US efforts to spread democracy. Now, democracy advocates say the Trump administration speaks the same way.

The geopolitical information warfare is no longer something that's happening halfway across the world, but it's happening within our own governments.

Who's gaining from that information war?

Also, Brazilian authorities filed charges against a former president for a coup attempt. Do they put a former president on trial? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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Measles is spreading across parts of West Texas.

Health officials thought they had eradicated this disease 25 years ago, but it's occasionally returned, most recently to five counties around Lubyck, Texas.

Which is where we find Samantha Larnet of our member station, KTTZ. Samantha, good morning.

Good morning.

What's it like there?

There is a lot of anxiety around this. In the past week, measles cases have more than doubled. We now have 58 confirmed cases. Here in Lubbick, it's just one, but it's the first one the city has seen in more than 20 years. Zack Holbrooks is the executive director of South Plains Public Health district, which serves Gaines County and Terry County, outside of Lubbick, where most of these cases are being reported, he expects cases to continue rising.

Could it grow? Absolutely, it could. We're trying to educate and get as much information out as possible so that people realize what the stakes are.

A majority of the cases are among school-age children, and the state health department says most of the measles patients are either unvaccinated or have an unknown vaccine status. Measles can be dangerous, even deadly, especially for babies and children.

Okay, you mentioned vaccines there. Do health authorities feel they understand how this particular outbreak got going?

Public health officials have described communities in Gaines County as vaccine hesitant. The vaccination rate there is just under 82 % as compared to the state of Texas, which has a vaccination rate of 90 %. Katherine Wells is the Director of Public Health here in Lubic, where there is that one case. She says the process of confirming measles cases is a lot quicker in a city than in those remote rural areas like Seminal, which is an hour and a half away from here, where a majority of those cases have occurred.

The quickest way to get that measles test done is in the state public health lab in Austin, which is fine when you're in Lubic because we have overnight delivery to Austin.

Okay, I guess she's saying that it's a little bit harder to catch up to this disease and track and isolate it when you're in some of the rural areas. I'd like to know, though, is this outbreak in West Texas representative of things going on around the country?

Well, like Texas in the past month, there's been cases in Georgia, Rhode Island, New York City, and Alaska. This is all coming as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is getting started leading the Health and Human Services Department. Kennedy was critical of the measles vaccine for years before he was nominated. Health officials say the vaccine is 97 % effective at preventing measles even after exposure. Some of the people who are at risk are those with compromised immune systems, like pregnant people and babies under one year old who can't receive the vaccine. Dr. Ron Cook is the Health Authority for the city of Lubic, and he says the vaccine is safe.

I tell my pediatric moms and dads, If they get a rash after the MMR, it's okay. It's not measles.

It's just your body's reaction to the vaccine.

There haven't been any deaths so far with this outbreak, but providers are concerned about continued spread from those who might not know that they have measles. And MMR vaccines are available across the state.

Samantha, thanks so much.

Thank you.

Samantha Alarn it as a reporter with member station KTTZ in Lubbock, Texas.

President Trump's drive to cut back the federal government includes cuts to a traditional tool against China. Yeah, the United States has promoted democracy and human rights abroad, and it's been seen as a way to counter the influence of authoritarian countries, especially China. Now, the US is blocking those efforts as It's part of an effort led by Elon Musk, the presidential aid who is the world's richest man.

Npr's Emily Fang has covered China for many years and is on the line. Emily, good morning.

Hey, Steve.

Good morning.

Okay, so why would the administration back off democracy promotion now?

Well, part of the reason given by Musk and other people close to Trump is that the agencies that fund these groups you're talking about are wasteful. Musk has accused, specifically the aid agency USAID, of being behind a, quote, hoax about Russian influence in the Trump administration without giving evidence. The US has also paused human rights and civil society related grants at the State Department. And the latest funding phrase I've been tracking is that the National Endowment for Democracy or NED. Interesting, some Republicans, like Marco Rubio who is now US Secretary of State, had previously seen groups they funded as essential to US national security because they build soft power by promoting US democratic ideals abroad. But since Rubio has joined the Trump administration, he has defended these massive cuts.

Okay, so This is worldwide, the effects of these changes, but a good portion of the funding was supporting Chinese dissidence, some diversity of opinion within China. So what does China think of that?

They have not said much publicly, but this is a huge windfall for China because these are all organizations Beijing found a nuisance. And I found signs that China is trying to co-opt some of these groups now. At least two human rights organizations that are China-focused but based here in the US tell me they've actually been approached by people within the Chinese government offering to introduce them to new China-based funders. This has specifically happened in just the last few days since they faced losing funding from the US. I also talk directly with a Chinese state representative who answers to the government there who requested anonymity because they're not authorized to speak publicly, they reached out to at least one China-focused civil society group that is at risk of losing their funding and proposed to them. Instead of criticizing people and organizations in China publicly, perhaps they facilitate private conversations with China to achieve social change. One of the groups he was in contact with said, this feels like a tactic to buy their silence, though the Chinese state representative argued, to me, it would be a more effective way for organizations to work.

Wow, Thanks for all that reporting. What are some of these groups that risk getting their funding cut?

They're the exact the groups that China and other authoritarian governments criticize. These are women's rights groups, human rights research groups, legal aid nonprofits. One of them is New York-based China Labor Watch. It was started by a researcher named Li Qiang, and his group investigates labor rights abuses.

He says here he's chosen to go on the record with me because he left China when he felt he could not speak freely there.

So he says now, if he stays silent on the funding cuts, what was the point of coming to the US?

Well, how does this affect Americans?

Well, for better or worse, the US is competing with China on social influence and soft power. And some human rights workers say they're worried about this convergence between how Trump administration officials talk about democracy and how governments like China describe it. Francisco Ben Cozmey is USAID's former China policy lead.

The geopolitical information warfare is no longer something that's happening halfway across the world, but is happening within our own governments.

For example, Musk called NED a scam and then cited a story on X, a takedown of the US Foundation from the Foreign Ministry of China.

Emily, thanks so much. Thank you, Steve. That's NPR's Emily Fung. Okay, Brazil's former President could be facing a long prison sentence for his participation in what authorities say was an attempt to overturn the country's election in 2022.

Yeah, Brazil's attorney general indicted the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, accusing him of plotting a coup to stay in power as well as inciting violence and even approving a plan to poison the current President.

Npr South America correspondent, Kari Khan, has been following all of this. Kari, good morning.

Good morning.

Wow. Coup attempt, inciting violence, poisoning. What more can you say about these accusations?

They're stunning charges. The standout points, prosecutors say that Bolsonaro and 33 others, where they said it was this vast criminal organization to keep him in power after he narrowly lost to the current President, Luis Anacio Lula da Silva. On top of that, there was also this outline to poison Lula, kill his vice President and a Supreme Court justice who Bolsonaro has feuded with. The idea was to create this constitutional crisis, and then the military would have to take over to calm any unrest then Bolsonaro would be reinstated. Investigators say they even found a speech that Bolsonaro was to give once he was back in power. In the indictment, the prosecutor said that, The plan was conceived and taken with the knowledge of the President, and he agreed to it.

Well, the draft of the speech, I guess, would be pretty strong evidence. But what has Bolsonaro said about the allegations?

He's always, always denied them. His defense did release a statement saying that the former President never, ever supported any movement to deconstruct the democratic rule of law in any way and called the charges inept. In a statement to the New York Times, Bolsonaro went further saying the accusations are, a weaponization of the justice system, and jailing him as a desperate attempt to criminalize his political movement and silence millions of Brazilians. If you're thinking the comparisons between Bolsonaro's case is similar to President Trump's false claims of the 2020 election being stolen from him. Bolsonaro did that himself. He said the legal fight against him is just like the same strategy used against President Trump, which he pointed out failed. The two men were close allies when Bolsonaro was in power, and supporters of Bolsonaro have been emboldened by Trump's return to power. They've been saying that the US President is even going to help them bring Bolsonaro back. He's been barred from running for office for at least eight years. His supporters in Congress are trying to get a bill through to grant pardons to Bolsonaro supporters who rioted the Capitol on January eighth of 2023, and they say they will get Trump's support.

They're hoping the bill will also apply to Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court here, however, has been one of the key institutions aggressively ruling against Bolsonaro and his right-wing movement. They've been overseeing investigations, even ordering the removal of social media posts that they say are antidemocratic.

Well, these events took place almost two years ago. Had people been waiting for these charges a long time?

Yes, they were. This has been a very lengthy investigation. Late last year, we got a glimpse of the evidence against Bolsonaro when police turned over their investigation to the attorney general prosecutor's office. That report was nearly 900 pages long. It's based on testimonies, phone records, and also plea deals with close allies of Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro's running mate, also charged in the case, has been in custody as well as other close evidence of his. There are also hundreds of cases against the rioters who were charged and tried for ransacking the capital on January eighth.

Okay, so long investigation, plea deals, 900-page report. Now we have the criminal charges. Where do we go next?

It's now up to the Supreme Court. They will decide whether they will arrest Bolsonaro and put him on trial. Such a trial like that could start this year, and it would definitely be an explosive political event in this deeply divided country. If convicted of the charges, which are quite serious, Bolsonaro's sentence could be anywhere from 12 years to as much as four decades, Steve, in prison.

And Pierre Skerry Kahn, thanks so much.

You're welcome.

That's a first for this Wednesday.

And that's up first for the... Sorry. We should have kept that in. I should have just kept going.

Just a little hacking.

A little bit of hacking.

This morning. Exactly. Got to wake up. That's all there is to it. And that's up first for this Wednesday, February 19th. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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