By JAMEY KEATEN and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — The United States on Monday announced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian aid as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to slash U.S. foreign assistance and warns United Nations agencies to “adapt, shrink or die” in a time of new financial realities.

Related Articles

How oil, drugs and immigration fueled Trump’s Venezuela campaign

Winter rain floods Gaza camps as Netanyahu heads for US meeting

Trump says Ukraine and Russia are ‘closer than ever’ to peace after talks with Zelenskyy

How did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little?

Federal judge to hold hearing on whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being vindictively prosecuted

The money is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past but reflects what the administration believes is a generous amount that will maintain the United States’ status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.

The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which money will be doled out to individual agencies and priorities, a key part of U.S. demands for drastic changes across the world body that have alarmed many humanitarian workers and led to severe reductions in programs and services.

The $2 billion is only a sliver of traditional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-backed programs, which has run as high as $17 billion annually in recent years, according to U.N. data. U.S. officials say only $8-$10 billion of that has been in voluntary contributions. The United States also pays billions in annual dues related to its U.N. membership.

Critics say the Western aid cutbacks have been shortsighted, driven millions toward hunger, displacement or disease, and harmed U.S. soft power around the world.

A year of crisis in aid

The move caps a crisis year for many U.N. organizations like its refugee, migration and food aid agencies. The Trump administration has already cut billions in U.S. foreign aid, prompting them to slash spending, aid projects and thousands of jobs. Other traditional Western donors have reduced outlays, too.

The announced U.S. pledge for aid programs of the United Nations — the world’s top provider of humanitarian assistance and biggest recipient of U.S. humanitarian aid money — takes shape in a preliminary deal with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, run by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and government official.

Even as the U.S. pulls back its aid, needs have ballooned across the world: Famine has been recorded this year in parts of conflict-ridden Sudan and Gaza, and floods, drought and natural disasters that many scientists attribute to climate change have taken many lives or driven thousands from their homes.

The cuts will have major implications for U.N. affiliates like the International Organization for Migration, the World Food Program and refugee agency UNHCR. They have already received billions less from the U.S. this year than under annual allocations from the previous Biden administration — or even during Trump’s first term.

Now, the idea is that Fletcher’s office — which last year set in motion a “humanitarian reset” to improve efficiency, accountability and effectiveness of money spent — will become a funnel for U.S. and other aid money that can be then redirected to those agencies, rather than scattered U.S. contributions to a variety of individual appeals for aid.

US seeks aid consolidation

The United States wants to see “more consolidated leadership authority” in U.N. aid delivery systems, said a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details before the announcement at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.

Under the plan, Fletcher and his coordination office “are going to control the spigot” on how money is distributed to agencies, the official said.

“This humanitarian reset at the United Nations should deliver more aid with fewer tax dollars — providing more focused, results-driven assistance aligned with U.S foreign policy,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz.

FILE – Women displaced from El-Fasher stand in line to receive food aid at the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan’s Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

U.S. officials say the $2 billion is just a first outlay to help fund OCHA’s annual appeal for money, announced earlier this month. Fletcher, noting the upended aid landscape, already slashed the request this year. Other traditional U.N. donors like Britain, France, Germany and Japan have reduced aid allocations and sought reforms this year.

“The agreement requires the U.N. to consolidate humanitarian functions to reduce bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary duplication, and ideological creep,” the State Department said in a statement. “Individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.”

“Nowhere is reform more important than the humanitarian agencies, which perform some of the U.N.’s most critical work,” the department added. “Today’s agreement is a critical step in those reform efforts, balancing President Trump’s commitment to remaining the world’s most generous nation, with the imperative to bring reform to the way we fund, oversee, and integrate with U.N. humanitarian efforts.”

At its core, the reform project will help establish pools of funding that can be directed either to specific crises or countries in need. A total of 17 countries will be targeted initially, including Bangladesh, Congo, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine.

One of the world’s most desperate countries, Afghanistan, is not included, nor are the Palestinian territories, which officials say will be covered by money stemming from Trump’s as-yet-incomplete Gaza peace plan.

The project, months in the making, stems from Trump’s longtime view that the world body has great promise, but has failed to live up to it, and has — in his eyes — drifted too far from its original mandate to save lives while undermining American interests, promoting radical ideologies and encouraging wasteful, unaccountable spending.

Fletcher praised the deal, saying in a statement, “At a moment of immense global strain, the United States is demonstrating that it is a humanitarian superpower, offering hope to people who have lost everything.”

Lee reported from Washington.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The United States is offering Ukraine security guarantees for a period of 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, though he said he would prefer an American commitment of up to 50 years to deter Russia from further attempts to seize its neighbor’s land by force.

U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement.

President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands at the start of a joint news conference following a meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Negotiators are still searching for a breakthrough on key issues, however, including whose forces withdraw from where and the fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world. Trump noted that the monthslong U.S.-led negotiations could still collapse.

“Without security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end,” Zelenskyy told reporters in voice messages responding to questions sent via a Whatsapp chat.

Ukraine has been fighting Russia since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists took up arms in the Donbas, a vital industrial region in eastern Ukraine.

Related Articles

How oil, drugs and immigration fueled Trump’s Venezuela campaign

Winter rain floods Gaza camps as Netanyahu heads for US meeting

Trump says Ukraine and Russia are ‘closer than ever’ to peace after talks with Zelenskyy

How did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little?

Federal judge to hold hearing on whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being vindictively prosecuted

Details of the security guarantees have not become public but Zelenskyy said Monday that they include how a peace deal would be monitored as well as the “presence” of partners. He didn’t elaborate, but Russia has said it won’t accept the deployment in Ukraine of troops from NATO countries.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump were expected to speak in the near future but there was no indication the Russian leader would speak to Zelenskyy.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Kyiv’s allies will meet in Paris in early January to “finalize each country’s concrete contributions” to the security guarantees.

Trump said he would consider extending U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine beyond 15 years, according to Zelenskyy. The guarantees would be approved by the U.S. Congress as well as by parliaments in other countries involved in overseeing any settlement, he said.

Zelenskyy said he wants the 20-point peace plan under discussion to be approved by Ukrainians in a national referendum.

However, holding a ballot requires a ceasefire of at least 60 days, and Moscow has shown no willingness for a truce without a full settlement.

Today is Monday, Dec. 29, the 363rd day of 2025. There are two days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 29,2021, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in New York of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by the late Jeffrey Epstein; the verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14. (Maxwell would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

Also on this date:

In 1170, Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, was killed in Canterbury Cathedral by knights loyal to King Henry II.

Related Articles

Brigitte Bardot, Movie Icon Who Renounced Stardom, Dies at 91

Winter storm batters Minnesota, bringing ‘potentially life-threatening travel conditions’

Midair helicopter crash in New Jersey leaves 1 dead and another critically injured

Rising electric bills lead to state scrutiny — but little relief for residents

States crack down on aggressive driving

In 1890, the Wounded Knee massacre took place in South Dakota as more than 250 Lakota people were killed by U.S. troops sent to disarm them.

In 1940, during World War II, the German Luftwaffe dropped incendiary bombs on London, setting off what came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London.”

In 1978, during the Gator Bowl, Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson player Charlie Bauman, who had intercepted an Ohio State pass. (Hayes was fired the next day.)

In 1989, dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel (VAHTS’-lahv HAH’-vel) assumed the presidency of Czechoslovakia. In 1993, he would become the first president of the newly independent Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved.

In 2024, Jimmy Carter, a Georgia peanut farmer who was elected president in the years after the Watergate scandal and served one tumultuous term starting in 1977, died at age 100. After his presidency, Carter worked tirelessly as a global humanitarian, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Jon Voight is 87.
Actor Ted Danson is 78.
Actor Patricia Clarkson is 66.
Filmmaker Lilly Wachowski is 58.
Actor Jennifer Ehle is 56.
Actor Jude Law is 53.
Actor Mekhi Phifer (mih-KY’ FY’-fuhr) is 51.
Actor Diego Luna is 46.
Actor and producer Alison Brie is 43.
Actor Jane Levy is 36.
Actor Dylan Minnette is 29.

By all accounts, David Brom has made the transition from prison to work release without a hitch, setting the stage that the Rochester ax killer could be granted parole as early as January.

“David Brom is doing well, as expected,” said Aaron Swanum, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Here’s David Brom today. (Courtesy of Minnesota Department of Corrections)

In an email, Swanum said Brom is set to go before the Supervised Release Board on Jan. 13, where a decision to put Brom on supervised release, a form of probation, could be approved. The meeting is public and can be viewed through live-streaming.

Earlier this year, the 54-year-old man who killed his parents, brother and sister with an ax when he was 16 in February 1988 was the beneficiary of a change in state law that repealed life sentences for juveniles. Sentenced to three consecutive life sentences, Brom had served 37 years of what was supposed to be, at a minimum, a 52.5-year sentence.

The change in law made Brom eligible for supervised release after serving 30 years in prison, which he had already done. But instead of granting Brom supervised release, members of the Minnesota Department of Corrections Supervised Release Board opted to grant him work release. Brom went from life in a medium-security prison to one in a halfway house — but not in Olmsted County. That was a stipulation of his release.

Supervised release is an intermediate state that comes after an offender is released from prison but before the person is restored to full liberty. If granted supervised release, Brom would no longer be required to reside in a Department of Corrections facility — a halfway house. He might have an opportunity to rent or buy a home. People on supervised release generally have to check in with a corrections agent, abstain from drugs and alcohol, and abide by a curfew.

For many offenders, the next step is freedom. You have paid your debt to society and are free to go. However, for some — and this may include Brom — a person sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of release may be on supervised release for the rest of his life.

Even though officials describe work release as a form of custody, the fact that Brom was getting a measure of freedom outraged and dumbfounded many legislators, law enforcement officials and members of the community with knowledge and memories of the horrific crime.

Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson issued a statement revealing how he struggled with the concept of leniency in the Brom case. Torgerson had been among the first law enforcement to arrive at the murder scene on Feb. 18, 1988, and he had never been able to forget the “sights and smells of what I saw that Thursday evening.”

“Diane and little Ricky could be parents and very productive members of our society, but we were never given the chance due to Mr. Brom’s selfish, immature, 16-year-old actions,” Torgerson said.

Yet as horrific as Brom’s actions were, the parole board was required under the new law to operate within new public policy parameters. It was duty-bound to weigh the factors in the Brom case through a correctional lens — and not through the horror of the crime, which no one was disputing.

And another factor in Brom’s favor, prison officials said, was that he had been an “utterly model prisoner” during his 37 years of incarceration. He had continued his education and worked toward becoming an inmate chaplain. When Brom was moved to the correctional facility in St. Cloud, it was so that he could serve as a mentor to other prisoners.

And those who dealt with Brom, including prison staff who had interacted with him for years, didn’t see the murderer.

“You talk to many of those staff, and those staff were saying stuff like, ‘If he were my neighbor, based on my experience with him, so be it,’” said Paul Schnell, the state’s commissioner of corrections.

For his part, Brom told the board that he had been in the grip of a depression that clouded his thoughts and emotions and that he felt he never would escape from.

“I had grown to a short-sighted view that I thought these things were going to last forever. In the cloud of depression, I started to believe that other people were at fault for how I felt.”

Related Articles

Stabbing investigated at Grand Marais food co-op, sheriff says

Crash kills 2 in Carlton County, sheriff reports

St. Paul poised to end 2025 with half the homicides of 2024

Security guard assaulted by Wyoming, Minn., ER patient dies of injuries

Minnesota’s new emergency operations center in Blaine built to withstand storms, power outages