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--:-- Leila Fadel: People around Lubbock, 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?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Leila Fadel: It's common for countries like China to criticize U.S. efforts to spread democracy. Now, democracy advocates say the Trump administration speaks the same way.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The geopolitical information warfare is no longer something that's happening halfway across the world, but it's happening within our own governments.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Who's gaining from that information war?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Also, Brazilian authorities filed charges against a former president for a coup attempt. Do they put a former president on trial? Stay with us.
--:-- Leila Fadel: We've got the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Leila Fadel: 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 Lubbock, Texas. Which is where we find Samantha Larnett of our member station, KTTZ.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: Good morning. What's it like there?
--:-- Leila Fadel: 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 Lubbock, it's just one, but it's the first one the city has seen in more than 20 years.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: Zach Holbrooks is the executive director of South Plains Public Health District, which serves Gaines County and Terry County. Outside of Lubbock, where most of these cases are being reported, he expects cases to continue rising.
--:-- Zach Holbrooks: 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.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: 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.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: Okay, you mentioned vaccines there. Do health authorities feel they understand how this particular outbreak got going?
--:-- Zach Holbrooks: Public health officials have described communities in Gaines County as vaccine hesitant. The vaccination rate there is just under 82 percent as compared to the state of Texas, which has a vaccination rate of 90 percent.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: Catherine Wells is the director of public health here in Lubbock where there is that one case. And she says the process of confirming measles cases is a lot quicker in a city than in those remote rural areas like Seminole which is an hour and a half away from here, where a majority of those cases have occurred.
--:-- Catherine Wells: 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 Lubbock because we have overnight delivery to Austin.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: 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.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: I'd like to know, though, is this outbreak in West Texas representative of things going on around the country?
--:-- Zach Holbrooks: Well, like Texas, in the past month, there's been cases in Georgia, Rhode Island, New York City, and Alaska.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: And 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.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: 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: 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.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: 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 Larnett: Samantha, thanks so much.
--:-- Samantha Larnett: Thank you.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Trump's drive to cut back the federal government includes cuts to a traditional tool against China.
--:-- Leila Fadel: 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 U.S. is blocking those efforts as part of an effort led by Elon Musk, the presidential aide who is the world's richest man.
--:-- Emily Fang: NPR's Emily Fang has covered China for many years and is on the line.
--:-- Emily Fang: Hey, Steve, good morning.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: OK, so why would the administration back off democracy promotion now?
--:-- Emily Fang: 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.
--:-- Emily Fang: Musk has accused specifically the aid agency USAID of being behind a, quote, hoax about Russian influence in the Trump administration without giving evidence.
--:-- Emily Fang: The U.S. has also paused human rights and civil society related grants at the State Department. And the latest funding phrase I've been tracking is at the National Endowment for Democracy, or NED.
--:-- Emily Fang: Interesting, some Republicans, like Marco Rubio, who is now U.S. Secretary of State, had previously seen groups they funded as essential to U.S. national security because they build soft power by promoting U.S. democratic ideals abroad.
--:-- Emily Fang: But since Rubio's joined the Trump administration, he's defended these massive cuts.
--:-- Emily Fang: Okay, so this is worldwide, the effects of these changes. But a good portion of the funding was supporting Chinese dissidents, some diversity of opinion within China.
--:-- Emily Fang: So what does China think of that?
--:-- Emily Fang: They have not said much publicly, but this is a huge windfall for China because these are all organizations Beijing found a nuisance.
--:-- Emily Fang: And I found signs that China is trying to co-opt some of these groups now.
--:-- Emily Fang: At least two human rights organizations that are China-focused but based here in the U.S. tell me they've actually been approached by people within the Chinese government offering to introduce them to new China-based funders.
--:-- Emily Fang: And this has specifically happened in just the last few days since they've faced losing funding from the U.S.
--:-- Emily Fang: I also talked directly with a Chinese state representative who answers to the government there, who requested anonymity because they're not authorized to speak publicly.
--:-- Emily Fang: They reached out to at least one China 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 could facilitate private conversations with China to achieve social change.
--:-- Emily Fang: And one of the groups he was in contact with said, you know, 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.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Wow, thanks for all that reporting.
--:-- Emily Fang: So what are some of these groups that risk getting their funding cut?
--:-- Emily Fang: They're the exact kind of the groups that China and other authoritarian governments criticize. These are women's rights groups, human rights research groups, legal aid nonprofits.
--:-- Emily Fang: One of them is New York-based China Labor Watch.
--:-- Emily Fang: It was started by a researcher named Li Qiang, and his group investigates labor rights abuses.
--:-- Emily Fang: 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.
--:-- Emily Fang: So he says now, if he stays silent on the funding cuts, what was the point of coming to the U.S.?
--:-- Emily Fang: Well, how does this affect Americans?
--:-- Emily Fang: Well, for better or worse, the U.S. is competing with China on social influence and soft power.
--:-- Emily Fang: 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.
--:-- Emily Fang: Francisco Ben Cosme is USAID's former China policy lead.
--:-- Francisco Ben Cosme: The geopolitical information warfare is no longer something that's happening halfway across the world, but is happening within our own governments.
--:-- Emily Fang: For example, Musk called NED a scam and then cited a story on X, a takedown of the U.S. Foundation from the foreign ministry of China.
--:-- Emily Fang: Emily, thanks so much.
--:-- Emily Fang: Thank you, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: 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.
--:-- Leila Fadel: 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.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: NPR South America correspondent Kerry Kahn has been following all of this.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Good morning.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Wow. A coup attempt, inciting violence, poisoning. What more can you say about these accusations?
--:-- Kerry Kahn: They're stunning charges. The standout points, prosecutors say that Bolsonaro and 33 others were, they said it was this vast criminal organization to keep him in power after he narrowly lost to the current president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: 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.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: The idea was to create this constitutional crisis, and then the military would have to take over to calm any unrest, and Bolsonaro would be reinstated.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Investigators say they even found a speech that Bolsonaro was to give once he was back in power.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: In the indictment, the prosecutor said that, quote, the plan was conceived and taken with the knowledge of the president, and he agreed to it.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Well, the draft of the speech, I guess, would be pretty strong evidence.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: But what has Bolsonaro said about the allegations?
--:-- Kerry Kahn: He's always, always denied them.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: 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.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: In a statement to The New York Times, Bolsonaro went further saying the accusations are, quote, a weaponization of the justice system and jailing him is a desperate attempt to criminalize his political movement and silence millions of Brazilians.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: And 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.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: He said the legal fight against him is just like the same strategy used against President Trump, which he pointed out failed.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: The two men were close allies when Bolsonaro was in power and supporters of Bolsonaro have been emboldened by Trump's return to power.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: They've been saying that the U.S. president is even going to help them bring Bolsonaro back.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: He 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 8th of 2023 and they say they will get Trump's support.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: They're hoping the bill will also apply to Bolsonaro.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: The Supreme Court here, however, has been one of the key institutions aggressively ruling against Bolsonaro and his right-wing movement.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: They've been overseeing investigations, even ordering the removal of social media posts that they say are anti-democratic.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Well, these events took place almost two years ago. Had people been waiting for these charges a long time?
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Yes, they were. This has been a very lengthy investigation.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: 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.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: That report was nearly 900 pages long. It's based on testimonies, phone records and also plea deals with close allies of Bolsonaro.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Bolsonaro's running mate, also charged in the case, has been in custody as well as other close confidence of his.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: And there are also hundreds of cases against the rioters who were charged and tried for ransacking the Capitol on January 8th.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: OK, so long investigation, plea deals, 900 page reports. Now we have the criminal charges. Where do we go next?
--:-- Kerry Kahn: It's now up to the Supreme Court. They will decide whether they will arrest Bolsonaro and put him on trial.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: You know, such a trial like that could start this year.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: And it would definitely be an explosive political event in this deeply divided country.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: And 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.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: And Pierce Carrie Kahn, thanks so much.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: You're welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's up first for this Wednesday.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And I'm Layla Fadel.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Make your next listen, Consider This. The team behind NPR's All Things Considered goes deep into a single news story in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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--:-- Announcer: Today's Up First was edited by Alfredo Carbajal, Padmananda Rama, Tara Neill, Reena Advani, and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Simon-Laslo Janssen, and our technical director is Stacey Abbott.
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