Category: News

As online dating became as easy as swiping a finger across your phone screen, the companies who own apps like Tinder and Bumble became Wall Street darlings. But about a decade later, those platforms are now struggling to live up to expectations, and investors have grown frustrated and eager for something new.

Match Group and Bumble — which make up nearly the entire industry by market share — have lost more than $40 billion in market value since 2021. Even in an age when the apps are a staple on people’s smartphones, the two companies are laying off workers and reporting lackluster revenue growth.

Both companies have recently brought on leaders who have vowed to experiment with new features, hoping to capture the growth investors crave. But they face one critical obstacle: Not enough young people are willing to pay for subscriptions to dating apps — partly because younger daters are increasingly looking to platforms like Snapchat and TikTok to make connections — and it’s not clear what will change that.

Match Group and Bumble generate the bulk of their revenue — about $4.2 billion for both companies last year — by selling subscriptions, with smaller income streams from advertising. But they’re struggling to grow those sales. Match Group was able to keep revenues steady last year only by raising its prices.

As far as investors are concerned, the businesses need to convince more young users to pay.

“Wall Street loves subscription models because it gives them the comfort of recurring revenues,” said Youssef Squali, an analyst at Truist Securities.

By paying, users can unlock features like unlimited swipes and the ability to see who has swiped on them. But for many people, that’s not enough: Unlike other paid subscription services, like Spotify or Netflix, dating apps can’t guarantee that you’ll find what you’re looking for.

“It feels really different to pay for access to people,” said Kathryn D. Coduto, a Boston University professor who studies dating apps. “Paying for it makes it feel a little skeezy.”

In the United States, 30 percent of adults, and over half of adults under 30, use dating apps, according to a survey by Pew Research Center that was released last year. About a third of dating app users reported paying for them, with men and higher-income adults more likely to pay than others, the survey found.

Millennials, the nation’s largest generation, were prime dating age when Tinder first rolled out, but more and more of them have married in recent years, a decision that usually results in people quitting the apps. Now the primary users are from Gen Z, a younger — and smaller — demographic with less disposable income. That generational shift poses a challenge for the dating app industry.

Mandy Wang, an 18-year-old student at New York University, said she preferred to meet people in person or through a direct message on platforms like Instagram or Snapchat. Dating apps are for casual use, “like a game,” she said.

“People use dating apps, but I don’t know anyone who pays for it,” Ms. Wang said. In fact, she said that she would consider it an “ick” if she learned somebody was paying for a subscription.

Jess Carbino, a former sociologist for Tinder who is now a consultant and dating coach, said younger people “still feel a desire to use online dating apps, but they’re not necessarily experiencing a sense of urgency to find a partner.”

“I think what we’re seeing is purely a demographic shift,” Dr. Carbino said.

Match Group and Bumble declined to comment on their plans to draw in more paying users, pointing to public statements made by their executives.

Bumble’s chief executive, Lidiane Jones, told analysts last month that the company would be revamping the app to appeal to more users, particularly younger ones, by adding “personalization and flexibility” to the experience.

Bumble’s larger competitor, Match Group, was an early player in the online dating market, starting with Match.com in 1995. The company acquired Tinder in 2017 and Hinge in 2018, kicking off a period of growth that caught investors’ attention.

Tinder is the largest brand in Match Group’s portfolio and the most popular dating app in the United States. It shook up the industry landscape in 2012 when it introduced a swipe feature, which is now ubiquitous in dating apps. But the swipe’s novelty has worn off, and Tinder has lost momentum. The number of paid users on the app was down nearly 10 percent in 2023.

Tinder’s struggles, and those of the broader dating app industry, are in part because the format is substantially the same as it has been for more than a decade, said Zach Morrissey, an analyst at Wolfe Research, a financial research firm. But the way people date may have shifted.

“This is a space where product innovation has been relatively muted in recent years,” he said.

That’s starting to hurt. Bumble, which went public in 2021, initially jumped in value but after a steady slide its stock is now about a quarter of its I.P.O. price. Match Group’s stock price reached a high of $169 in 2021. It now sits at $34, about a fifth of its peak value.

Match Group and Bumble have made some changes recently to convince investors that they can spin things around, but it’s unclear what will solve their problems. “There’s not an obvious silver bullet that they need to address,” Mr. Morrissey said.

Both companies have had some leadership shake-ups: In January, Ms. Jones joined Bumble, and Match Group promoted Faye Iosotaluno, the former chief operating officer of Tinder, to be the app’s chief executive.

Bumble announced last month that the company was laying off about a third of its work force in the first half of this year. It also lowered its revenue forecast for the first quarter, below Wall Street expectations.

“The demand for connection and love continues to be really strong — two billion single people around the globe,” Ms. Jones told analysts in February. “Yet the products that are bearing the set of experiences to create those connections are not serving users the way that they want to.”

Match Group’s chief executive, Bernard Kim, told analysts in a Jan. 31 earnings call that this year Tinder was “adopting a fast-fail mentality, a strategy that prioritizes rapid experimentation and testing.” Mr. Kim took over the company in 2022 after previously serving as president of Zynga, the maker of mobile games like Farmville.

He said that the company would attract more paying users through marketing and that it was adjusting its products in various ways, including introducing new à la carte premium features.

Match Group has also expanded its offerings, like a service for L.G.B.T.Q. dating, called Archer, and one marketed toward Latinos, called Chispa. Revenue from those products was down 4 percent in 2023.

Mr. Kim said that Tinder was reimagining the swipe feature altogether and would be rolling out new functions this year. The platform is also pushing for more users to get verified, a move that’s aimed at improving safety and helping women feel more comfortable using the app.

The activist investor Elliott Management, which previously led shake-ups at Salesforce and Pinterest, took a $1 billion stake in Match Group in January, a sign that Wall Street sees an opportunity for growth.

Elliott declined to comment on its discussions with Match Group. Mr. Kim told analysts that he and the firm had “collaborative dialogue.”

Despite the challenges, the dating industry isn’t going anywhere, said Ken Gawrelski, an analyst at Wells Fargo.

“Dating, overall, and love, more generally, is a core human behavior,” he said. “So it’s hard to believe that changes materially. But the way we date, or the way we find matches, is very much an issue in this discussion.”

President Biden in his budget this week staked out major economic battle lines with former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The proposal offers the nation a glimpse of the diverging directions that retirement programs, taxes, trade and energy policy could take depending on the outcome of the November election.

During the past three years, Mr. Biden has enacted key pieces of legislation aimed at bolstering the green energy economy, making infrastructure investments and reinforcing America’s domestic supply chain with subsidies for microchips, solar technology and electric vehicles. Few of those priorities are shared by Mr. Trump, who has pledged to cut more taxes and erect new trade barriers if re-elected.

The inflection point will be arriving as the economy enters the final stretch of what economists are now expecting to be a “soft landing” after two years of high inflation. However, the prospect of a second Trump administration has injected increased uncertainty into the economic outlook, as companies and policymakers around the world brace for what could be a dramatic shift in the economic stewardship of the United States.

Here are some of the most striking differences in the economic policies of the two presidential candidates.

Sparring over the social safety net

At first glance, Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump might appear to have similar positions on the nation’s social safety net programs. In 2016, Mr. Trump broke with his fellow Republicans and refused to support cuts to Social Security or Medicare. Mr. Biden has long insisted that the programs should be protected and has hammered Republicans who have suggested cutting or scaling back the programs.

In his budget proposal on Monday, Mr. Biden reiterated his commitment to preserving the nation’s entitlement system. He called for new efforts to improve the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, including making wealthy Americans pay more into the health program. However, his plans were light on details regarding how to ensure both programs’ long-term sustainability.

Separately on Monday, Mr. Trump appeared to suggest that he was open to entitlement cuts. He said on CNBC that there is “a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements.”

The Trump campaign clarified that the former president was referring to cutting waste, but the Biden campaign seized on the comment. It quickly released an advertisement contrasting Mr. Trump’s remarks with Mr. Biden’s vow at the State of the Union to stop anyone who tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age.

Although Mr. Trump never signed cuts to Social Security or Medicare as president, he has previously flirted with the idea. Asked about entitlements cuts in a CNBC interview in 2020, he said, “At the right time, we will take a look at that.”

To tax or not to tax?

One of the biggest contrasts between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump revolves around who — if anyone — should pay more in taxes.

The president proposed more than $5 trillion in tax increases on corporations and the wealthy this week, including a new 25 percent minimum tax on the wealthiest Americans and an increase in the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent.

Mr. Biden paired his proposed tax increases on the wealthy with tax relief for the middle class. He called for an expansion of the child tax credit, which many Republicans have opposed, broadening eligibility for the earned-income tax credit and new tax credits that aim to make housing more affordable for first-time buyers.

Mr. Trump signed into law the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which included nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts, much of which benefited companies and the rich. Many of those tax cuts expire in 2025, meaning that whoever is president will have a big say in whether they are extended or allowed to sunset.

Mr. Biden wants to roll back much of the 2017 law, except for the parts that benefit taxpayers earning less than $400,000.

Mr. Trump has offered few specifics about his tax plans, but suggested at a rally in February that he envisioned another round of cuts.

“You’re all getting the biggest tax cuts because we’re doing additional cuts and a brand-new Trump economic boom like you’ve never seen before,” Mr. Trump said.

Speaking to CNBC on Monday, Mr. Trump said it would be “very bad for this country” if the Trump tax cuts were not extended.

The Friendshorer vs. the Tariff Man

While Democrats and Republicans have become more polarized in recent years, trade policy is one of the few areas where views seem to have converged.

For all their differences, Mr. Biden has largely left the trade agenda that Mr. Trump handed to him intact. The tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports that Mr. Trump imposed have yet to be rolled back, Mr. Biden has intensified scrutiny of Chinese investments in the United States and of American investment in China, and the Biden administration’s industrial policy has rankled relations with some European countries.

If he is re-elected, Mr. Biden is likely to continue his policy of deepening trade ties with American allies — a policy referred to as friendshoring — and reducing supply chain reliance on adversaries such as China. The Biden administration is expected to complete a review of the China tariffs in the coming months and could reduce some levies on consumer products and raise others that would further protect the burgeoning U.S. electric vehicle sector.

Mr. Trump has indicated that he is gearing up for a new round of trade wars. The former president and self-proclaimed “Tariff Man” has discussed imposing a 10 percent tariff on all imports in a second term and a tariff of 60 percent or more on Chinese goods.

Clashing on clean energy

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has become Mr. Biden’s signature piece of legislation and its future — and the trajectory of U.S. climate policy — depends on who wins the election.

Mr. Biden’s economic team has been racing to roll out regulations associated with the tax and climate law to entrench investments in clean energy and the electric vehicle supply chain into the economy. The Biden administration hopes that the law could prove to be enduring because many of these investments are being made in states that are led by Republicans.

However, Mr. Trump, who has long derided electric vehicles as overpriced, underpowered and a threat to American jobs, should not be counted on to embrace much of the law if elected.

“We are a nation whose leaders are demanding all electric cars, despite the fact that they don’t go far, cost too much and whose batteries are produced in China,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in New Hampshire in January.

The former president, who pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, is also unlikely to prioritize other clean energy investments.

For years, Mr. Trump has argued that solar power is ineffective and that wind turbines are responsible for the slaughter of birds.

In the last decade, it has proved surprisingly hard to put politicians accused of corruption behind bars. Appeals courts have reversed several convictions. And juries have occasionally thought the officeholders’ behavior didn’t meet the high standard for corruption.

Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who was arraigned yesterday in a federal bribery case, is both an example of the conundrum and a test of whether federal prosecutors now know how to overcome it. In the senator’s last corruption trial, in 2017, jurors couldn’t make sense of the gifts and favors he’d received from a wealthy eye doctor. Were they illegal — or just the sort of thing friends do for each other?

Menendez, a Democrat, faces new charges for taking cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible. In exchange, prosecutors say, he attempted to disrupt criminal cases and used his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee inappropriately. He introduced a businessman who sought funding to a member of Qatar’s royal family, and he helped push through aid and weapons sales for Egypt, the charges say.

This time, prosecutors are hoping to make the indictment stick. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why the bar for conviction is so high — and what government lawyers need to do to succeed, including against Menendez, where previous cases have failed.

A tough standard

The Supreme Court is the main reason for the Justice Department’s difficulties. In a 2016 decision, the justices threw out a graft conviction against Bob McDonnell, a former Virginia governor. McDonnell, a Republican, used his office to help a businessman who’d lent him $135,000 and gifted luxury items and vacations.

But the justices didn’t think that was proof of corruption. They said it wasn’t enough for public servants to provide political courtesies, like setting up a meeting for a friend. The politicians needed to have a specific quid pro quo involving an official act or a governmental decision. The ruling effectively narrowed the legal definition of corruption.

The McDonnell case had an immediate impact. The following year, a federal appeals court in New York tossed out the convictions of two top state officials: Sheldon Silver, former Democratic speaker of the State Assembly, and Dean Skelos, a Republican who once ran the State Senate. These reversals — and there were others — were based on the Supreme Court’s new standard. The appeals court said that the jurors had found the defendants guilty without being told about the new requirement of a clear quid pro quo.

Adapting

But prosecutors quickly learned their lesson. At retrials, they convicted both Silver and Skelos using much of the same evidence. And they fixed the problem that hurt them initially: They focused on the specific exchange of services for payments and made sure the juries understood the new definition imposed by the McDonnell ruling.

The case against Menendez is a different kind of test. It relies on new charges, not the same facts from his 2017 mistrial.

The new charges detail the relationship between Menendez, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen. The evidence, prosecutors say, shows that the senator and his wife (both of whom pleaded not guilty) took money, gold and the car in exchange for their influence. Then the couple tried to cover up one of the bribes by making it look like a loan. The trick for prosecutors this time is making sure the Menendez charges fall on the right side of the narrow line that the Supreme Court drew in the McDonnell case.

While that has sometimes proved difficult in the past, it’s not impossible. Last week, the same appeals court that reversed the convictions against Silver and Skelos reinstated bribery charges against a different New York politician, Brian Benjamin, the former Democratic lieutenant governor. The key difference was that the prosecutors had shown enough evidence of “an explicit quid pro quo” for the case to be revived, the appellate judges ruled. Prosecutors say that in exchange for campaign contributions, Benjamin steered $50,000 in state money to a developer.

If the jurors in the coming Menendez trial see the same thing, the charges against him may stick this time.

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TikTok

• House Republicans plan to vote this week on a bipartisan bill to force the Chinese owners of TikTok to sell the company. (Here’s why many governments oppose the app.)

• Trump no longer supports banning TikTok. When asked why, he said that doing so would make young people “go crazy” and would help Facebook, which he called “an enemy of the people.”

Media

• Deadspin, a sports news website, was sold to a European digital media company.

• In a bleak media landscape, start-ups like Puck and Semafor have found some success.

Other Big Stories

Opinions

The princess’s photograph scandal is a piece of careless fakery that makes the British royal family look amateurish, Lindsay Crouse writes.

Museum-worthy posters: You’ve likely seen a movie poster by the designer Dawn Baillie. She came up with the “Silence of the Lambs” poster and captured the dystopia of “The Truman Show.” Baillie’s work is the subject of a new exhibition at Poster House in Manhattan.

“A poster’s job is to celebrate a film in one frame,” she told The Times. “The job is well done when an audience is piqued and the poster makes it to the dorm room wall.” Read an interview about her process and see some of her most famous posters.

More on culture

A group of Democratic senators urged President Biden on Monday to stop providing offensive weapons to Israel for the war against Hamas until it lifts restrictions on U.S.-backed humanitarian aid going into Gaza.

In a letter to Mr. Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and seven Democrats argued that by continuing to arm Israel, Mr. Biden was violating the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid.

It was the latest bid by members of his own party to intensify pressure on Mr. Biden to use his leverage to demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu change his tactics and mitigate the suffering of Palestinians as the offensive in Gaza drags into its fifth month.

“We urge you to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that failure to immediately and dramatically expand humanitarian access and facilitate safe aid deliveries throughout Gaza will lead to serious consequences, as specified under existing U.S. law,” the group wrote.

Mr. Sanders said it was clear that Mr. Netanyahu’s actions were in breach of the terms of American military aid as set out in the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, which is part of the foreign assistance law. The act says that as soon as the president is made aware that a country is blocking or restricting the delivery of American humanitarian assistance, no U.S. military aid can be provided.

“That’s exactly what Israel is doing; they are preventing U.S. humanitarian assistance from getting to the people of Gaza,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “They are in violation of the law, and therefore financial aid should be suspended.”

The move is the latest bid by Democrats in Congress to register their discontent with Mr. Netanyahu’s conduct and lean on Mr. Biden to use his power to try to change Israel’s tactics as civilian deaths rise and reports of starvation increase. The letter, written by Senators Sanders, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, is signed by some of the Democratic Party’s most progressive members: Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, Peter Welch of Vermont, Tina Smith of Minnesota and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico.

“I hope the president understands that a growing number of members of Congress, and the American people in general, are sick and tired of seeing the destruction of the people of Gaza and the creation of mass starvation,” Mr. Sanders said.

But so far, Congress has shown no ability to use its own leverage to try to change Israel’s behavior. Proponents of restricting military aid or conditioning it to a change in conduct by Mr. Netanyahu lack the votes to win adoption of such measures in either the House or the Senate. That has left them to air their anguish about the conduct of Israel’s offensive and the suffering it has created in Gaza through a series of strongly worded letters that have yielded little action from Mr. Biden.

Last month, the Senate approved an emergency national security aid bill that would send an additional $14.1 billion in military aid to Israel, including $10 billion for offensive weapons for the war against Hamas.

The letter draws a distinction between defensive aid for Israel, such as the Iron Dome, and the military assistance that would go toward furthering Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

“Israel has the right to defend itself,” Mr. Sanders said, “but Israel does not have — in any way, shape or form — the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people.”

For months now, the United Nations and aid groups in the region have accused Israel of either failing to provide safe passage to aid deliveries or preventing vehicles from clearing checkpoints and holding up aid along the border.

Mr. Biden has stopped short of directly laying blame on Mr. Netanyahu for stopping humanitarian assistance, and has continued to provide unequivocal support of Israel’s military operation.

But as the United States finds itself as both the source of offensive weaponry and the provider of relief for those on the receiving end of attacks from those weapons, Mr. Biden has had to come up with ways to circumvent the obstacles preventing assistance from reaching the Palestinian people.

This month, Mr. Biden authorized an airdrop of 38,000 ready-to-eat meals into Gaza, and last week he announced that the U.S. military would build a temporary pier to create a new entry point for aid into the region.

The actions, the senators said, are a tacit admission from the White House that Israel is standing in the way of much-needed food and supplies getting to starved Palestinians.

“People are now dying of starvation, and we need to use all the leverage we’ve got,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “The administration has not used the leverage it has today. I don’t know how many more kids have to starve before we use all the levers of our influence here, but they really need to do more.”

Andrew Tate, the wealth-flaunting online influencer known for his misogynistic views, and his brother, Tristan, were taken into custody Monday night in Romania on a European arrest warrant issued by the British authorities, a spokesman for Mr. Tate said.

The charges related to the arrest were made between 2012 and 2015 and include allegations of sexual aggression, the spokesman said. He added that the charges had been dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service years later.

The local police in Romania said in a brief statement that the arrest warrants were for sexual crimes and the exploitation of individuals in Britain. The men were also ordered detained for 24 hours, it said.

It is unclear which British force issued the warrant or why the case has been reopened.

The Bucharest Court of Appeal in Romania is expected to make a decision Tuesday afternoon on whether to extradite the Tate brothers to Britain, Mr. Tate’s spokesman said.

The spokesman said the brothers “categorically reject all charges and express profound disappointment that such serious allegations are being resurrected without substantial new evidence.”

Mr. Tate, who regularly uses various platforms to broadcast his virulent brand of male chauvinism, posted on social media Tuesday morning, “The Matrix is afraid, but I only fear God.”

Mr. Tate, a former professional kickboxer, and his brother were separately charged in 2022 with forming an organize criminal group and engaging in human trafficking across Romania, Britain and the United States.

Some details of those charges have been kept confidential, but an official in the prosecutor’s office in Romania confirmed that Mr. Tate was also facing accusations of rape in the 2022 case. The brothers have denied the accusations against them and maintain their innocence.

It was not immediately clear when a trial in that case would begin.

Mr. Tate’s profile grew after he appeared as a contestant on the British reality show “Big Brother” in 2016. He was kicked off the show, according to The Sun tabloid, after a video surfaced of him hitting a woman with a belt, which he and the woman said was consensual.

He later amassed millions of followers, many of them young men, by claiming that men are victims of feminism and that women “belong” to men and need men’s guidance.

Because Mr. Tate’s views have reached so many school-aged boys, education officials across Britain have been scrambling to mitigate his influence. In fact, some are using class time to discuss Mr. Tate.

Matei Barbulescu contributed reporting from Romania.

Haiti’s prime minister, who has come under growing pressure to resign as gangs have overrun the country, said late Monday that he would step down once a transitional council had been established, to pave the way for the election of a new president and help restore stability.

“The government that I lead will withdraw immediately after the installation of this council,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said in a speech posted on social media. Referring to the chaos in Haiti, he said, “It hurts us and it revolts us to see all these people dying. The government that I lead cannot remain insensitive to this situation.”

But it was far from clear when Mr. Henry, who had been under growing pressure to step down both in Haiti and abroad, would actually do so.

Leaders from Caribbean nations, who have led the push to create a transitional council, met for discussions in Jamaica on Monday but said no plan had been finalized. Guyana’s president, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, who leads Caricom, a union of 15 Caribbean countries, said that “we still have a long way to go.”

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who attended the meeting in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, announced that the United States would provide an additional $100 million in aid toward a United Nations-backed multinational security mission planned to deploy to Haiti. He also pledged an additional $33 million in humanitarian aid, bringing the U.S. commitments to $333 million.

“We can help. We can help restore a foundation of security,” Mr. Blinken said. “Only the Haitian people can, and only the Haitian people should determine their own future, not anyone else.”

Mr. Henry left Haiti for Kenya in early March to finalize an agreement for the multinational force, led by the East African nation, to deploy and take on the gangs. Since then, he has been stranded outside his country while gang members wreak havoc and demand his resignation.

Mr. Henry, who has been staying in Puerto Rico, did not attend Monday’s meeting, and it was unclear if he had taken part remotely in the discussion.

After months of delays, Haiti and Kenya signed an agreement this month to move forward with the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to the Caribbean nation. President William Ruto of Kenya said his country had a “historic duty” to press ahead because “peace in Haiti is good for the world as a whole.”

Kenya’s interior minister, Kithure Kindiki, announced Monday that the mission was in the “predeployment stage” and that all other programs and enforcement measures related to the deployment were already in place.

So far, however, there is no clear timeline for when the multinational force will deploy.

“We are deeply distressed that it is already too late for too many who have lost far too much at the hands of criminal gangs,” said Andrew Holness, the prime minister of Jamaica. “The fear of the situation in Haiti worsening to become a civil war is now a real one. We are all agreed that this cannot be allowed to happen, not in our hemisphere.”

Haiti has spiraled into a state of extreme unrest since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 led to widespread gang violence. To date, the country has no president nor any other elected national officials.

Mr. Henry was sworn in as prime minister only two weeks after Mr. Moïse’s killing. But Haitians have not yet been able to choose a democratically elected successor.

The current unrest is on a scale not seen in decades. The recent escalation of violence, gang attacks on police stations and even coordinated assaults on two prisons have left Haitians to deal with a humanitarian disaster as access to food, water and health care has been severely curtailed.

Over the weekend, U.S. forces evacuated nonessential U.S. citizen workers from the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince and added more security personnel, according to a statement from the Defense Department’s Southern Command. It said no Haitians were included in the airlift.

Andre Paultre contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.