A Florida couple’s trip to the Dominican Republic to attend a wedding turned into days of anxiety after they dropped off their 2-year-old son with relatives in neighboring Haiti and the boy ended up trapped due to the increasing unrest in that country.

After nearly three weeks, the boy, Julien, finally left Haiti and flew back to Florida on Wednesday, where he was reunited with his parents, Philippe-Olivier Armand and his wife, Olivia Turnier.

Their son’s evacuation was part of a growing number of hasty and ad hoc departures from Haiti, which has been ravaged by a wave of gang violence that has turned parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, into a war zone and is closing its main airport .

“It was going to be a 48-hour journey, but it turned into two and a half weeks of uncertainty and stress,” says 36-year-old Mr. Armand, a Haitian businessman who works in the financial and insurance industries and travels between Haiti and his home in Miami. . He said they left Julien in Haiti on March 1.

Julien, along with seven cousins ​​and six other family members, boarded a helicopter Wednesday morning in Port-au-Prince that flew them about 125 miles north to Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city. There they were met by a charter plane from the Florida Department of Emergency Management, which took them to Florida.

The U.S. State Department said Thursday that it has helped 160 Americans leave Haiti since Sunday, some on flights to the United States and others by helicopter to the Dominican Republic.

Haiti’s capital has been consumed by violence since a coalition of gangs launched a coordinated offensive against Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s government in late February, raiding police stations and other government buildings, looting hospitals and banks and attacking private homes.

Mr. Henry, who was unable to return to Port-au-Prince after an official trip and has been staying in Puerto Rico, has agreed to resign once a transitional government is installed. Negotiations over who will be part of that government are proceeding slowly.

As part of an international plan to stabilize Haiti, a mission of 1,000 police officers led by Kenya and approved by the United Nations should be deployed to the Caribbean country after an interim government is installed.

Gangs now control major roads in and out of Port-au-Prince and block access to the seaport, cutting off the supply of food, fuel and water to the city. This week, gang members have attacked more affluent areas, including the suburb of Pétionville, where many families from abroad live.

As of Tuesday, about a thousand Americans had filled out “crisis intake” forms as part of the process to seek a way out of the country, according to the State Department, although officials said evacuations would be dictated by security conditions.

The state of Florida is organizing its own departures, with Governor Ron DeSantis announcing Tuesday that the flight that brought the Armand family from Haiti to Orlando would likely be the first of many.

Mr. Armand said the ordeal began when he and several relatives left their children with relatives in Haiti. “All the parents traveled without their children, and it became a nightmare,” he said.

Relatives, Mr. Armand said, were given last-minute instructions Wednesday morning to go to a sand field in Pétionville, where the helicopter picked them up.

“It was not easy to find a place to land the helicopter,” said Philippe Armand, Julien’s 75-year-old grandfather, who lives in Miami and used WhatsApp to track the journey. “It was quiet, like a covert operation.”

The logistics were organized with the help of a Florida foundation run by Jack Brewer, a former National Football League player.

“It wouldn’t have happened without him,” Mr Armand said.

Americans on flights coordinated by the U.S. government must agree to reimburse the government, although the State Department has said the cost will not exceed the price of a commercial flight between the countries.

Mr. DeSantis said people who traveled on the plane that landed in Florida would not be charged.

With Port-au-Prince airport closed, evacuations have become increasingly dangerous. To reach Cap Haitien you must travel on roads controlled by gangs who regularly kidnap drivers and passengers and demand ransoms.

Many Haitians are calling with greater urgency for the United States to send military reinforcements to Haiti, and some are angry about the focus on evacuating U.S. citizens and diplomatic personnel from other countries.

“Instead of addressing the situation, we see embassies evacuating people,” said Reginald Delva, a Haitian security adviser and former minister of the Haitian government. “It is time to focus on the security situation.”

Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and longtime venture capitalist, is no longer the public face of venture capital firm Greylock. Michael Moritz, who has worked at Sequoia Capital for 38 years, officially separated from the investment firm last summer. And Jeff Jordan, a top investor at Andreessen Horowitz for 12 years, left in May.

They are among the most recognizable of a generation of Silicon Valley investors who are retiring from venture capital at the end of a lucrative 15-year boom for the industry.

Many more are leaving. Investors at Tiger global, Paradigm, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Emergence capital And Spark Capital have all announced plans to step back. Foundry Group, a venture capital firm in Boulder, Colorado that has backed 200 companies since 2006, said in January that no new fund would be raised.

All told, the steady number of departures has created a sense that venture capital – a $1.1 trillion A corner of the financial world that invests in young, private companies, sometimes spawning companies like Apple, Google and Amazon, is in a moment of transition.

“We are at an inflection point,” said Alan Wink, director of capital markets at EisnerAmper, which provides advisory services to venture capital firms. While there have been waves of retirements in the past, he said this one was more pronounced.

The turnover creates an opening for new investors to step up, potentially changing the power players in Silicon Valley. That could also change the calculus for young companies as they decide which venture firms to seek funding from.

Yet the latest generation of investors is faced with a startup investment landscape that has become more challenging. Few venture capital funds benefit from the huge windfalls – which come from start-ups going public or being bought – that can safeguard an investor’s reputation. That also makes it harder for venture capital firms to raise money, with industry fundraising falling 61 percent last year and some major companies lowering their targets.

The latest generation of investors, including Mr. Moritz, 69; Mr. Hoffman, 56; John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, 72; Jim Breyer of Accel, 62; and Benchmark’s Bill Gurley, 57, rose to prominence by betting on consumer internet startups such as Google, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb, which grew into giants.

Today’s emerging venture capitalists are waiting for their version of those winners. Some of the most valued startups — like OpenAI, the $86 billion artificial intelligence company — are in no rush to go public or sell. And it could take years for the frenzy surrounding generative AI to translate into big wins.

“We are in a period of reset, based on where the technology is and where it is going,” said David York, an investor at Top Tier Capital, which invests in other venture capital firms. “These stars will emerge.”

Industry stalwarts like Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, and Peter Thiel of Founders Fund continue to write checks and exert influence. (All three companies have supported OpenAI.)

But many others are stepping down as a 15-year winning streak that has generated billions in profits for the industry recently turned into a downturn. Venture capital firms typically invest in ten-year fund cycles, and some aren’t eager to commit to another decade.

“There’s a bull market element to it,” said Mike Volpi, 57, an investor at Index Ventures who recently said he would withdraw from the firm’s next fund. Mr Volpi’s decision was previously reported via the Newcomer newsletter.

EisnerAmper’s Mr. Wink said that in some cases, the investors backing venture capital funds would like fresh blood. The message he said: Get on top.

“Don’t be like many professional athletes who sign that last contract and your on-field performance is nowhere near what it was in your glory days,” he added.

For years, venture capital could only grow, driven by low interest rates that encouraged investors around the world to take on more risk. Cheap money, the proliferation of smartphones, and abundant cloud storage have allowed many technology startups to flourish, delivering huge returns for investors who had bet on these companies over the past fifteen years.

According to PitchBook, which tracks startups, investment in U.S. startups increased eightfold to $344 billion between 2012 and 2022. Venture capital firms grew from small partnerships into huge asset managers.

The largest venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, now manage tens of billions of dollars in investments. They have grown into more specialized funds focusing on assets such as cryptocurrencies, opened offices in Europe and Asia and entered new areas such as asset management and public equities.

Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst and others also became registered investment advisors, meaning they could invest in more than just private companies. For a short time, venture capital was the job for ambitious young people in the financial sector.

The expansions have contributed to some investors deciding to take a step back. Mr. Volpi, who joined Index Ventures in 2009 after 14 years at Cisco, said he got into venture capital because of a change of pace from the corporate world. He has backed startups including work messaging company Slack and AI startup Cohere.

But over the years, Index – and the venture industry as a whole – grew bigger and more professional.

“Maybe it’s up to someone else to fight that battle,” Mr. Volpi said.

Many venture capital funds have also grown so large that owning a stake in a “unicorn,” or a startup valued at $1 billion or more, is no longer enough to generate the same profits as before.

“If you want to give three times your money back, a unicorn is not enough,” said Renata Quintini, an investor at Renegade Partners, a venture capital firm. “You need a decacorn,” she added, referring to a start-up valued at $10 billion or more.

The largest companies have moved from providing profits to their investors from the traditional definition of venture capital — very young, risky companies with the potential for outsized growth — to a more general idea of ​​“tech exposure,” Ms. Quintini said.

Manu Kumar, founder of venture capital firm K9 Ventures, has felt the shift. Since 2009, he has written checks of $500,000 or less to invest in very young companies. Some of those investments, including Lyft and Twilio, went public, while others were sold to larger tech companies like LinkedIn, Meta, Google and Twitter.

But starting last year, he said, the venture capital investors who would have provided the next round of funding to the startups he backed began demanding more progress before investing. (Startups typically raise a series of increasingly large financings until they go public or sell.) And potential buyers were laying off workers and cutting costs, not acquiring startups.

“Companies today have only one option,” Mr Kumar said. “They need to build a real business.”

In October, Mr. Kumar told investors that the math of his investment strategy was no longer working and that he would not create a new venture capital fund. He plans to keep an eye on the market and revisit the option in a year.

“I want to be convinced of what my strategy will be,” he said. “I don’t have that belief at the moment.”

Haiti, a Caribbean nation with a long history of unrest, is experiencing one of its worst periods of chaos.

Gangs have closed the airport; looted seaports, public buildings and shops; and attacked nearly a dozen police stations. Roads have been blocked, cutting off food supplies, and 4,600 prisoners have been released after prisons were attacked.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry is stranded in Puerto Rico as mobsters wreak havoc, demanding his resignation and holding up dozens of trucks full of World Food Program food shipments.

The state of emergency around the capital Port-au-Prince was extended by a month.

With the government on the brink of collapse, the United States and Caribbean countries are working on a resolution — including a plan for a transitional government — that would restore some semblance of order to the troubled country and allow Mr. Henry to return turn. At home.

Who are the gangs and what do they want?

Experts estimate that there are about 200 gangs active in Haiti, including about 20 in Port-au-Prince. They range from small groups of a few dozen young men sharing pistols to crews of about 1,500 with weekly salaries and automatic weapons belonging to hierarchical organizations with bosses.

Two major gang federations, G-Pèp and the G-9 Family, control many of the capital’s poorest neighborhoods. The criminal groups and their allies sometimes work together, but more often they clash.

The groups are historically linked to political parties: the G-9 is affiliated with Haiti’s ruling Tèt Kale party, while G-Pèp tends to support opposition parties.

The G-9 and its allies have largely taken over the ports and roads around the country’s main airport. It has been virtually impossible to drive from Port-au-Prince to the northern cities as gangs have seized the north-south highway.

Mr Henry left the country for Kenya last week, where he signed an agreement paving the way for a multinational force led by the East African nation to travel to Haiti and defeat the gangs.

Instead, in Mr. Henry’s absence, gang leaders announced a loose alliance called “Vivre Ensemble” or “Living Together.” They launched coordinated attacks on state institutions with the aim of overthrowing the current government and preventing the deployment of international forces.

“They want to gobble up neighborhoods one by one,” said Nicole M. Phillips, a human rights lawyer specializing in Haiti. “Whatever government allows them to do that, that’s what they want.”

The gangs also hope to establish a government council to rule the country, and they want to help elect its members so they can exercise control, said Robert Muggah, who researches Haiti for several U.N. agencies.

Who leads the gangs?

The gangs have different leaders in different neighborhoods, but in recent days a gang leader named Jimmy Chérizier, who goes by Barbecue, has become the public face of the Living Together alliance.

He is a former police officer known for his ruthlessness and accused of directing massacres. His gang alliance, the G-9, controls central Port-au-Prince and is accused of attacking neighborhoods linked to opposition political parties, looting homes, raping women and killing people indiscriminately .

He called it an ‘armed revolution’.

He tried to strike a more conciliatory tone this week by apologizing to people whose homes were looted by gangs, including his own alliance, during the recent unrest.

“Our first step in the fight is to overthrow the government of Ariel Henry, as we have always said, and then we will ensure that the country has a strong state with a strong legal system to fight the corrupt,” he said during a press conference. conference. “We are going to make sure that we have a strong security system so that everyone can circulate when they want and return when they want.

“Our goal is to see a new Haiti.”

While it was unclear whether the gang leader’s more measured approach was sincere or calculated, Mr. Muggah noted that it was nevertheless a new position for Mr. Chérizier.

“We have seen Chérizier and the G-9 move towards more political rhetoric in recent weeks,” Muggah said. “In addition to calling for rebellion and threatening civil war if their demands are not met, they are trying to propose solutions that would allow them to retain their power if they are at least acquitted and granted amnesty for all the crimes they have committed. concerned.”

Why is Kenya planning to send police officers to Haiti?

Kenya was one of the few countries that responded to Haiti’s international request for help.

Haiti hasn’t held an election in eight years. The president was assassinated almost three years ago. Mr Henry, the appointed Prime Minister, is widely regarded as an illegitimate leader.

The state has effectively lost its credibility and power – and gangs have stepped in to fill the void.

Last year, nearly 5,000 people were murdered and another 2,500 kidnapped. according to the UN, a level of violence that has doubled compared to last year. According to the UN, January was the most violent month in two years, with more than 800 deaths

In late 2022, Mr Henry asked the international community to take action. Some countries, including the United States, showed little interest given the dismal results of previous international interventions in Haiti.

The United States has agreed to finance most of the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers, plus more from other countries, but this has been delayed by Kenyan court rulings.

As Haitian gangs have grown in size and firepower, they have acquired more territory and key infrastructure. They charge fees to cross certain highways and to recover hijacked trucks, and demand ransoms to release kidnap victims.

In recent years, violent groups began spreading to rural areas such as Artibonite, about 90 kilometers north of Port-au-Prince and one of Haiti’s main agricultural areas. Gangs invade farms and make it difficult – if not impossible – for farmers to travel and sell their goods.

Who are these gang members?

That’s a complicated question to answer.

“We use the word ‘gang’ now because it’s convenient, everyone uses it and it’s a word everyone knows, but it doesn’t reflect what’s going on,” said Romain Le Cour, who researches Haiti for the Geneva-based Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

Most gang members are men in their twenties, from impoverished urban neighborhoods where opportunities are scarce. They often work with elite business leaders and politicians who pay them to do everything from securing cargo to rallying protesters. Political parties have used gang members in elections to swing the vote – or suppress it.

“There is a long tradition in Haiti of elites trying to create and fuel paramilitary groups, which in recent decades have helped them to serve their interests and use violence to maintain a monopoly on a certain product or for certain political interests” , said Diego Da Rin. , a Haitian researcher with the International Crisis Group.

The concept of irregularly formed armed groups dates back decades in Haiti, and there have been several types of violent actors in the country.

During Haiti’s dictatorship under Francois Duvalier, paramilitary groups known as Tonton Macoutes were notorious for their violence and repression. In 1995, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide banned paramilitary groups and disbanded the Haitian armed forces.

Former soldiers who were originally part of Mr. Aristide’s movement later founded local self-defense groups known as “baz,” which often followed charismatic leaders and came to rule parts of Port-au-Prince.

Other past paramilitary groups include the far-right Front for the Progress and Progress of Haiti and the Chimères, which were linked to Mr Aristide.

Now the line between a boss and a gang is often blurred.

People fed up with gang violence have joined a movement known as “bwa farmers,” which embraces vigilante justice. They have committed extrajudicial killings and typically target criminals, often with support from the local community.

In addition, many members of a government-sanctioned environmental brigade known as B-SAP have turned against the state, bringing a new group of armed people into the mix.

Can the police stop them?

The Haitian National Police has seen about 3,000 of its 15,000 employees flee in the past two years. Although the United States has poured nearly $200 million into the department, it is notoriously understaffed and under-resourced. The department has 47 armored personnel carriers, but less than half were operational during a recent visit by UN investigators.

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

Mention Belmopan, Belize’s capital located deep in the country’s interior, and many Belizeans will disparage the city as a bastion of bureaucrats who are not only boring but also devoid of nightlife.

“I was warned, ‘Belmopan is for the newlyweds or the almost dead,’” says Raquel Rodriguez, 45, an art school owner, of the response when she moved to Belmopan from bustling coastal Belize City.

Belmopan is not exactly known as a paradise for young city dwellers and is one of the smallest capitals in all of America. It has only about 25,000 residents and a cluster of hurricane-proof, heavy on the concrete, Mayan-inspired Brutalist buildings.

The capital of Central America’s only English-speaking nation can feel startlingly different from the hectic capitals of its neighbors. In origin and design, Belmopan has more in common with the capitals of other former British colonies, especially in Africa.

But Belmopan may also be a prism through which we can view the development of Belize, which has emerged as an exception in Central America. In a region where rulers embrace authoritarian tactics, Belize has developed into a relatively stable (if young) parliamentary democracy with a history of peaceful transfers of power.

The capital, sometimes serenely calm, has a reputation for safety and quality of life. In a sparsely populated country of less than half a million people, Belize’s welcoming atmosphere also reflects Belize’s extraordinary ethnic diversity and propensity to absorb migrants from other parts of Central America.

Think of the open-air market where many residents buy their food. Hawkers greet customers in Belize’s official language, English or Kriol, the patois formed centuries ago when British brought enslaved Africans to what is now Belize.

Other sellers speak Mayan languages ​​such as KekchiMopan and Yucatec, highlighting indigenous peoples who have long lived in Belize or moved to the country from Guatemala or Mexico. Reflecting different waves of migration, others practice their professions in Spanish, Chinese or Spanish Plautdietschan archaic Germanic language influenced by Dutch.

Like many others in Belmopan, Johan Guenther, 71, a Mennonite farmer, came from somewhere else. He was born in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, home to large Mennonite communities, and came to Belize at the age of 16.

He then tried his luck in Bolivia for a while, but decided he preferred the milder lifestyle of Belize. He lives with his wife in a small farming settlement outside Belmopan and comes to the capital to sell cheese, butter, cream and honey at the market.

“I’m not a city person, but I love Belmopan,” Mr. Guenther said in a mix of English, Plautdietsch and Spanish. “It is quiet, good for selling my production, easy to get in and easy to leave.”

Making Belmopan a hub for agricultural development in Belize’s interior, and a refuge from natural disasters, was a top priority when British colonialists developed plans to build the city after Hurricane Hattie destroyed the old capital, Belize City, in 1961, leaving hundreds dead .

At the time, these were planned cities emerge in various parts of the world, a trend reinforced by the 1960 inauguration of Brazil’s futuristic capital, Brasília. In the disintegrating British empire, especially in Africa, these were also the new capitals DodomainTanzania; Gaborone, in Botswana; And Lilongwe, in Malawi. Designers, like Belmopan, largely had them in mind “garden cities” with plenty of open spaces, parks and pedestrian walkways.

Political tensions shaped the city’s plans. George Price, the architect of Belizean independence, viewed the construction of Belmopan as a way to forge a sense of national identity transcendent ethnic differences. And with Guatemala laying claim to Belize in a territorial dispute that continues to this day, Belize’s colonial rulers chose a location about halfway between Belize City and the Guatemalan border in an effort to settle inland.

Solid concrete government buildings such as the National Assembly are reminiscent of the pyramid-shaped design of a Mayan temple, located on an artificial hill where a breeze could cool the structure. They were designed to be both hurricane resistant and economical, avoiding the need for air conditioning at the time.

At the same time, authorities tried to attract officials to Belmopan by offering them housing, mainly in the form of concrete shells, on streets where people from different economic backgrounds would live.

“Belmopan is a social experiment,” says John Milton Arana, 51, an architect from Belize whose family moved here in 1975. Noting the sidewalks that still connect residential areas to the concrete-laden core of Belmopan, he added: “The pedestrian was the priority of this project. vision.”

Yet Mr Arana said the remarkably slow city can also be disorienting with its roundabouts, ring road and lack of busy commercial areas. “People come to visit and ask me, ‘Where is downtown?’” Mr. Arana said. “I tell them, ‘You just got through it.'”

Not everyone is sold on Belmopan. Tourists tend to neglect the city, preferring to snorkel near remote islands or beautiful Mayan archaeological sites. When Belmopan was inaugurated in 1970, it was predicted that it would quickly grow to a population of 30,000 – a figure it has still not reached more than fifty years later.

Some attribute that slow growth to perpetual budget constraints, which leave Belmopan looking perpetually unfinished. The fortress-like structures where many officials toil are showing their age, adorned with noisy air conditioning units; Airy new buildings like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a gift from the Taiwanese government full of hanging gardens, show how authorities have moved away from Belmopan’s Spartan origins.

Mr Arana, the architect, said deviations from Belmopan’s original designs changed the city for the worse. The dilapidated development outside the central areas, he said, especially where Spanish-speaking migrants from neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala have settled, underscores problems such as substandard housing and untreated sewage.

Opinions about Belmopan are divided among diplomats. Countries such as Panama and Guatemala, along with the self-governing island of Taiwan, have their embassies in Belize City, which has more than double the population of Belmopan. Even after Belize gained full independence in 1981, it took 25 years for the United States to move its embassy to Belmopan.

Michelle Kwan, the United States ambassador to Belize and a decorated Olympic figure skater, said she grew to love Belmopan after moving from Los Angeles. She compared life here to her training days in Lake Arrowhead, a small resort community in California’s San Bernardino Mountains, where she could “really focus on what I needed to do.”

“It’s no different here,” Ms. Kwan said. “This is what we focus on and where we work.”

Others in Belmopan suggest that the city has helped forge a multicultural Belizean identity, incorporating Mayan peoples and newer Latino immigrants, that differs from that of Belize City, better known as a bastion of Kriols, people of African and British descent. descent.

“Belmopan has made our cultural differences less pronounced,” said Kimberly Stuart, 49, an education professor at the University of Belize, whose main campus is in the capital.

Others regret certain aspects of life in Belmopan. While flashy new homes and eye-catching new office buildings are changing the capital’s small-town feel, restaurants and bars are still few in number and often close early.

Some in Belmopan say it’s downright boring, but they like it so much. Raj Karki, 52, a Nepalese immigrant who moved to Belize to work on a hydropower project, loved the laid-back city so much that he decided to stay and open a restaurant serving South Asian cuisine near government buildings.

“You can come to Belmopan from anywhere in the world,” Mr Karki said. “Soon you will be welcomed and they will say: ‘Help us build the future.’”

A man set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington on Sunday afternoon and police examined a suspicious nearby vehicle for explosives, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington said.

U.S. Secret Service officers extinguished the fire outside the embassy, ​​in northwest Washington, around 1 p.m., said Vito Maggiolo, a spokesman for the city’s fire department. The man was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries and remains in critical condition.

The investigation continued and police had not cleared the accident scene as of Sunday afternoon. Secret Service agents and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked with Washington’s explosive ordnance disposal unit to investigate the incident, said Sean Hickman, a police spokesman.

No embassy staff members were injured and all are missing, said Tal Naim, a spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in Washington.

The Israeli embassy in Washington has been the scene of ongoing protests against the war in Gaza, as civilian casualties continue to rise in the devastated enclave, with more than 29,000 dead, local health ministry officials said.

In December, a protester set himself on fire in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, in what police said was “likely an extreme act of political protest.”