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International donors will need to work with the country's fragmented local administrations as well as its military rulersRestrictions on the press and internet imposed by the military junta that rules Myanmar mean that information about the powerful earthquake that struck the country on Friday, just before 1pm local time, was even more incomplete than usual in the aftermath of a disaster. At least 144 people are reported to have been killed - a death toll that is certain to rise - while a state of emergency was declared in the Thai capital, Bangkok. There, eight people are confirmed to have died while dozens of construction workers arefeared trapped after the high-rise building that theywere working on collapsed. Further aftershocks are expected and will make the work of rescuers andthosedelivering humanitarian assistance in bothcountries harder.The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.7, is the most severe to hit the region since 1956, which means buildings are unlikely to have been designed with this threat in mind. The disaster could not have come at a worse time for Myanmar's people, with more than 18 million already either displaced or facing hunger, according to the UN. In Rakhine state, 2million people are at risk from famine, with the junta accused of inflicting collective punishment" on them. An estimated 6.7 million children live in earthquake-affected areas, including the country's second-biggest city, Mandalay, which is 17km from the epicentre. As this was a Friday, during Ramadan, many people are thought to have been crushed as busy mosques fell down.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Justice department looking into whether schools comply with 2023 supreme court ruling ending affirmative actionThe Trump administration has opened investigations into the admissions policies at Stanford University and three campuses within the University of California system, including UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC Irvine, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.US attorney general Pam Bondi has directed the department's civil rights division to investigate whether the schools' policies comply with the 2023 US supreme court ruling that ended affirmative action in college admissions, the department said in a statement. Continue reading...

Lawmakers say consuming teeth-strengthening mineral should be individual choice' as dentists oppose moveUtah has become the first US state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations.The Republican governor, Spencer Cox, signed legislation late on Thursday that bars cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems. Continue reading...

The jeopardy over our country's work remains, and we're bracing ourselves for a scary situation we know all too wellWe don't have a reliable count for how many people have been shot in the United States this year. We don't know how many were shot last year either. Or the year before that. These most basic numbers should inform our gun violence prevention efforts. But they don't exist.This is the void of information that is created and persists when critical research is suppressed.Dr Jessica Beard is the director of research for the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting, a Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow, and director of trauma research at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University; Dr Elinore Kaufman is the research director for the division of trauma at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Pennsylvania Trauma System Foundation Research Committee. Both are trauma surgeons in Philadelphia. Continue reading...

Jenner & Block and WilmerHale seek to stop executive orders that would halt business with government

The island, with the seventh-largest school district in the US, is unusually reliant on federal fundingMaraida Caraballo Martinez has been an educator in Puerto Rico for 28 years and the principal of the elementary school Escuela de la Comunidad Jaime C Rodriguez for the past seven. She never knows how much money her school in Yabucoa will receive from the government each year because it isn't based on the number of children enrolled. One year she got $36,000; another year, it was $12,000.But during the Biden administration, Caraballo noticed a big change. Due to an infusion of federal dollars into the island's education system, Caraballo received a $250,000 grant, an unprecedented amount of money. She used it to buy books and computers for the library, whiteboards and printers for classrooms, to beef up a robotics program and build a multipurpose sports court for her students. It meant a huge difference for the school," Caraballo said. Continue reading...

The Democratic representative Ritchie Torres joined forces with a Republican to form the congressional Crypto caucus. That's a dangerous moveTwice rejected by American voters in favor of Donald Trump, the Democratic party now faces its most severe crisis of identity in four decades. Nowhere is the party's search for relevance in Trump's America more desperate than in its embrace of cryptocurrency, a sector whose existence depends upon its ability to circumvent the financial regulatory state the Democrats spent a century constructing. How else to explain the Democratic representative Ritchie Torres - whose South Bronx district is the poorest in the United States - joining forces with the Republican Tom Emmer to champion cryptocurrency through their newly formed congressional Crypto caucus.Congressional Republicans have always been uniform in their support for cryptocurrency: in May 2024, just three Republican House members voted against a bill to significantly relax regulations on digital tokens. But since 2016, the cryptocurrency industry has made steady inroads into the Democratic party. That convergence, if it continues, will represent a return to the pre-New Deal financial politics that the party spent a century rejecting.Alex Bronzini-Vender is a writer living in New York Continue reading...

Heidi Markow says charcoal work bought at local art auction just stood out to me as something special'A woman in Pennsylvania has bought what is believed to be a rare Renoir charcoal drawing, potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, for just $12 at a local art auction.ABC news reported that Heidi Markow, who owns an antiques business in the state, found the item at a collector's auction in Montgomery county in January. Continue reading...

Former presidential candidate writes op-ed excoriating Signal leak and White House's dangerous' actions

Bangkok declared a disaster area and Myanmar's ruling junta makes rare call for aid after 7.7-magnitude quake. Plus, 200 anti-Musk protests to take place globally on Saturday

After the onePulse Foundation aimed too high and folded, the City of Orlando stepped in to get the process under wayThere were times when Patty Sheehan doubted a memorial to the victims would ever be built at the site of Orlando's Pulse nightclub, where 49 people lost their lives in 2016 in what was then the country's deadliest mass shooting.Among the lowest points for the long-serving city commissioner was when she discovered that a gift shop was included in an ambitious original proposal for a museum to remember the survivors and those killed when a lone gunman claiming allegiance to Islamic State terrorists attacked the gay club. Continue reading...

Immigrants have played a central role to the revival of Middletown, Ohio, while the vice-president has made criticizing immigrants a main theme of his political careerWhen Daniel Cardenas from Coahuila, Mexico, first arrived in Middletown, a post-industrial city of 50,000 people in south-west Ohio, he was immediately enamored.It's a small town with friendly people. You have shops, big stores; there's no traffic," he says. Continue reading...

The widely reviled veep and his wife may not see much of the island they'd like to annex, but the US military base will be lovely at this time of yearThere's a Gerard Butler movie called Greenland, which - via a series of cataclysmic events handled incredibly Butlerishly - ends with Gerard cocooned in a remote secure bunker in Greenland. As the week has worn on, this has increasingly become the mood of today's supposedly super-fun tourist trip to Greenland by the second lady of the United States, Usha Vance, and her husband, the vice-president, JD Vance. Who, come to think of it, does actually look like the Cabbage Patch Gerard Butler.Anyway: Greenland. Like I say, the trip has evolved this week both in style and substance. Originally, it was announced that the second lady was going to take one of her sons, immerse herself in various local events - she's apparently simply fascinated by Greenland's culture - and attend the famous Avannaata Qimussersua dog sled race. No more. Now, it's her husband instead of her son, and the Vances are only going to a military facility. This is a little bit like announcing you're travelling to Kyoto to see the blossoms, then recalibrating" your trip so that all you'll actually be taking in is a tour of the storage facility where they keep the most boring documents from the signing of the 1997 climate protocol. Extremely important, no doubt - and extremely, extremely boring. Or as the White House has chosen to characterise this shift in emphasis: The Second Lady is proud to visit the Pituffik Space Base with her husband to learn more about Arctic security and the great work of the Space Base." It is unclear at time of writing if Pituffik has spa facilities. Presumably it's got something of a year-round apres-ski vibe.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

JD Vance to lead plan as Trump says there's been concerted' effort to rewrite US history with distorted narrative'Donald Trump has ordered an overhaul to the Smithsonian Institution, claiming he will eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology" from the world's largest museum, education and research complex.In an executive order issued on Thursday, the president said there had been a concerted and widespread" effort over the past decade to rewrite US history by replacing objective facts" with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth". Continue reading...

We take a closer look at the app used by top officials to discuss a Yemen bombing mission despite it not being approved for such purposes

A new book has sparked debate with its provocative claim that progressive public policy in the US is brokenIs progressive public policy in America broken? Do many left-leaning laws actually make life more expensive for struggling people? Is regulatory red tape hindering growth and innovation? Have Democratic-run cities, such as New York and San Francisco, become giant billboards against liberal governance?These arguments wouldn't sound out of place in a policy paper from a conservative thinktank. Yet their newest champions are two of America's best-known left-leaning journalists, the New York Times' Ezra Klein and the Atlantic's Derek Thompson - and they believe the left is overdue for a reckoning of sorts. Continue reading...

Alvaro Bedoya, who was involved in cases against firms such as Amazon, warns of apparent quid pro quo' dealsThe US is in the midst of an extraordinary battle between the rule of law versus the rule of billionaires", a top Democratic government official and attorney has warned, after his unprecedented firing by Donald Trump.Alvaro Bedoya, abruptly terminated as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week, sounded a blinking red alarm" over backroom quid pro quo" dealmaking he said appears to be taking place inside the Trump administration. Continue reading...

Street protests today are far more numerous and frequent than skeptics might suggestWhere is the resistance?" is a common refrain. Our research affirms that resistance is alive and well.Many underestimate resistance to the current Republican administration because they view resistance through a narrow lens. The 2017 Women's March in particular - immediate in its response, massive in its scope and size - may inform collective imaginations about what the beginning of a resistance movement should look like during Trump 2.0.Erica Chenoweth is a political scientist at Harvard Kennedy School and co-director of the Crowd Counting Consortium. Chenoweth is the author of Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know and co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.Jeremy Pressman is a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and co-director of the Crowd Counting Consortium. His most recent book is The Sword is Not Enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the Limits of Military Force.Soha Hammam is a postdoctoral research associate at Harvard Kennedy School's Nonviolent Action Lab, where she researches political mobilization and law enforcement responses across the US. She was previously a democracy visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a peace scholar fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. Continue reading...

The UConn star has embraced Black America rather than being pitted against it. It means she has not been lionized in the same way as a similarly brilliant playerUConn's Paige Bueckers, the probable No 1 pick in this year's WNBA draft, is a brilliant talent, although she may not want you to point that out.Everybody was focused on me and what I did at UConn my freshman year," she said during last year's NCAA Tournament. But I think it's more important for the game to share the spotlight to grow the game and show all the stars of college basketball and not just focus on one particular player, whether it be me, Caitlin [Clark], JuJu [Watkins], Angel [Reese]. There's so many names in college basketball now that are huge, that are stars that deserve credit." Continue reading...

Social media influencer, reality TV star, podcaster and center continues chase for place at World Cup in EnglandThe rugby sevens star, social media influencer and reality TV competitor Ilona Maher is included in the US Eagles squad for four 15-a-side games this spring, as her quest for a place at the World Cup later this year moves on from a successful stint with Bristol Bears in England.Listed as a center, having played wing for Bristol, Maher is set to return to the USA Rugby 15s pitch for the first time since 2021, where she debuted with two caps during the Pacific Four Series", USA Rugby said in announcing its squad for games against Japan and, in this year's Pacific Four, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Continue reading...

New guidelines are well intentioned, but as parents of babies know, finding time to look after yourself is impossibleOne of the many things you don't realise until you have a newborn is just how much people congratulate you simply for leaving the house. Well done for getting out and about," they say, with the cheerful camaraderie of People Who Know. Going outside may sound like a low benchmark, but during those early weeks summoning the energy to put on clothes, pack a bag, and then using that narrow window between sleeping, feeding, pooing and screaming to cross the threshold into the world can feel like the grand sum total of all human endeavour. Screw the frescoes of the Scrovegni chapel: Mama made it to Budgens.Which explains my reaction when I read that new guidelines published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine say that new mothers should be strongly encouraged to do at least two hours of moderate to vigorous exercise a week, in addition to daily pelvic floor muscle training", and further that they should develop a healthy sleep hygiene routine", avoid screen time and maintain a dark, cool, quiet environment before bed".Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The PM offers a political hybrid designed for a fickle electorate. There are short-term electoral gains to be won, but risks in the long termFor more than eight months now, since shortly after Labour won power, more and more people have been outraged by the government's moves to the right. Starting with its decision to keep the Conservatives' cruel two-child benefit cap last July, the government has regularly given these critics reasons to feel shocked, betrayed or just disappointed.From deportation videos to Keir Starmer's declaration that I like and respect" Donald Trump, from repeated public sector cuts to the chancellor Rachel Reeves's talk of tearing down regulatory barriers" in this week's spring statement, Labour has often behaved as if the boundaries between its supposedly centre-left politics and the politics of the right or even the far right have simply melted away. Continue reading...

The jailing of President Erdoan's main political rival is the low point of a decade-long march towards autocracy - but the protesters aren't done yet either Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel prize in literatureSince the arrest earlier this month of President Recep Tayyip Erdoan's main political rival, Istanbul mayor Ekrem mamolu, on what are clearly trumped-up charges of corruption and terrorism, Taksim Square, the city's biggest tourist site and hub of political protest, has been lying empty, cordoned off by police. In my 50 years living in Istanbul, I have not seen as many so-called security measures on the streets as I have over the past few days.Taksim's metro station and many of the city's other busiest stations have been closed. The regional government has restricted car and intercity bus access to Istanbul. The police are checking incoming vehicles, and anyone suspected of travelling to the city to protest is turned away. Here and all over the country, televisions are permanently switched on so people can follow the latest distressing political developments. For the past week, the Istanbul governor's office has banned public protests and political demonstrations - rights enshrined in the constitution. Yet spontaneous unauthorised protests and clashes with the police have continued unabated, even though internet access has been restricted in an attempt to prevent gatherings. The police use teargas ruthlessly and have arrested countless people. Continue reading...

This blog has now closed. You can read more of our US politics coverage hereTop aides to Joe Biden aggressively" warned Democratic donors last summer that if the then president was forced out of the 2024 election over concerns about his age and fitness, the party would inevitably make the mistake" of running the vice-president, Kamala Harris, against Donald Trump, a new book says.One donor on the receiving end of an electronic message summed up the sentiments of Biden's top aides: They were aggressively saying that we would wind up with the vice-president and that would be a mistake.'" Continue reading...

Boasberg will later decide whether the disappearing messages in the Signal chat violated federal records retention laws. Here's your roundup of key US politics stories from 27 March 2025A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to preserve all Signal messages exchanged in the now-infamous group chat in which officials organised a high-level military operation in Yemen that inadvertently included a journalist.The temporary restraining order compels defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, CIA director John Ratcliffe and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to save their texts from 11 to 15 March. Continue reading...

Kseniia Petrova was returning to the US from a trip to France when officials revoked her visa and detained herA Russian scientist from Harvard Medical School has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to her friends and colleagues.On Wednesday, Cora Anderson, who works with the Russian scientist Kseniia Petrova, shared the news of Petrova's detention on Facebook, saying the Russian scientist arrived at Boston Logan international airport on 16 February from a trip to France when she was stopped by US authorities. Continue reading...

Canadian PM says Donald Trump has permanently altered relations, as countries around the globe insist import taxes are harmful to all, including WashingtonCanada's prime minister has said the era of deep ties with the US is over", as governments from Tokyo to Berlin to Paris sharply criticised Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on car imports, with some threatening retaliatory action.Mark Carney warned Canadians that Trump had permanently altered relations and that, regardless of any future trade deals, there would be no turning back". Continue reading...

Yolanda Saldivar will continue to serve a life sentence for fatally shooting the Mexican American music legendThe woman convicted of killing Tejano music legend Selena Quintanilla-Perez has been denied parole after spending decades behind bars for fatally shooting the young singer at a Texas motel in 1995, the state's parole board announced on Thursday.Yolanda Saldivar will continue serving a life sentence at a prison in Gatesville, Texas, after a three-member panel of the Texas board of pardons and paroles voted not to release her. In a statement explaining the denial, the board said the panel found that Saldivar continues to pose a threat to public safety and that the nature of the crime indicated a conscious disregard for the lives, safety or property of others". Continue reading...

Restraining order was issued to ensure that records of Yemen attack group conversation are retainedA federal judge on Thursday ordered that the Trump administration preserve all Signal messages exchanged in the now-infamous Signal group chat in which officials conducted a high-level military operation on the unclassified commercial app and inadvertently included a journalist.The temporary restraining order from James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, compelled defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, CIA director John Ratcliffe and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to save their texts from 11 to 15 March. Continue reading...

Doge members, including Airbnb co-founder, aired their vision for federal government to be Apple Store-like'Elon Musk and seven members of his so-called department of government efficiency" sat down for a rare interview on Thursday evening on Fox News, defending their efforts amid public backlash and concern over cuts to key government agencies.Over the course of an hour-long sit down with host Bret Baier, Musk and team members repeatedly attempted to assuage fears over Doge's targeting of agencies such as the Social Security Administration. Musk also downplayed the number of government employees his initiative has targeted in cuts, saying it was a small percentage of the overall government workforce and others left voluntarily. Continue reading...

Lawsuit says Michael Burch, who died in 2023, languished in cell for a week with no medical care after fight with deputyA 69-year-old man slowly suffocated to death in a rural Colorado jail after his ribs were broken in an altercation with a deputy and he languished in a cell for a week without medical care, according to a lawsuit announced on Thursday.Michael Burch's 2023 death was ruled a homicide. Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against the deputy who used a Taser on Burch and wrestled with him in a Huerfano county jail cell. In making the decision, district attorney Henry Solano cited self-defense laws. Continue reading...

Critics say US defense secretary's tattoo of the word kafir, meaning infidel' or non-believer' could offend MuslimsThe US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth has a tattoo that appears to read infidel" or non-believer" in Arabic, according to recently posted photos on his social media account.In photos posted on Tuesday on X, the Fox News host turned US defense secretary had what appears to be a tattoo that says kafir", an Arabic term used within Islam to describe an unbeliever. Hegseth appears to have also had the tattoo in another Instagram photo posted in July 2024. Continue reading...

Move comes after months of delays, with unconfirmed New York Republican unable to participate in either UN or HouseDonald Trump announced on Thursday that he was pulling US House representative Elise Stefanik's nomination to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a stunning turnaround for his cabinet pick after her confirmation had been stalled over concerns about Republicans' tight margins in the House.Trump confirmed he was withdrawing the New York Republican's nomination in a Truth Social post, saying that it was essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress". Continue reading...

Homeland security chief went to infamous prison holding deported Venezuelans as White House targets immigrants

Paul Hyon Kim allegedly set vehicles ablaze in latest attack on Tesla amid protests over Elon Musk-led budget cutsLas Vegas police have arrested a man suspected of attacking a Tesla service center earlier this month with molotov cocktails that he allegedly used to set several vehicles on fire.Paul Hyon Kim, 36, who is in custody at the Clark county detention center, faces multiple felony counts, including suspicion of arson and destroying or injuring real or personal property, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Continue reading...

Secretary of state called those with revoked visas lunatics' as video shows masked immigration officers sweeping people off streets

Hundreds of people asked to leave their homes amid states of emergency and out-of-state responders battling blazesWildfires continued to rage in North and South Carolina on Thursday, leading to states of emergency and evacuations as firefighters deployed from other parts of the US to help bring the blazes under control.In North Carolina, progress was being made in containing two of the largest wildfires burning in the mountains, but officials warned that fire danger remained from dry and windy conditions. Continue reading...

Justification for arrest not clear as Trump administration increasingly targets students for arrest and deportationThere was an outcry on campus at the University of Alabama on Thursday after US immigration authorities detained a doctoral student - an event which campus officials confirmed on Wednesday.A spokesperson for the state's flagship university said in a brief statement that a student was arrested off campus" by federal immigration officials, but declined to comment further, citing privacy laws. Continue reading...

The chance of the president succeeding in his radicalism is small, but amid the chaos are challenges to convention that were overdueMove fast and break things" was Mark Zuckerberg's motto in launching Facebook 20 years ago. It seemed the antithesis of management-school custom and practice. But it worked, to be imitated after a fashion by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other digital tycoons with similar success. Donald Trump is now seeing if it works in government.The smart money in Washington was that after the fiasco of Trump's first term, his second would see a more emollient president, one careful of his reputation. He would reach out, consult, become a peacemaker, in his desperation to become a Nobel president like Barack Obama.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Democrats Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya said White House violated laws and constitution in firing themTwo Democratic commissioners fired by Donald Trump from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit on Thursday to challenge their indefensible" terminations.Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, whose controversial firings were announced last week, are suing the Trump administration for unlawfully" removing them from their positions. Continue reading...

Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested by masked officers and sent to Louisiana despite order she be kept in MassachusettsA lawyer for a Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained by US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed an emergency motion on Thursday requesting that the government produce her after she was shipped off to Louisiana despite a previous court order that she should not be removed from Massachusetts.At court hearing in Boston on Thursday morning, the district judge Indira Talwani initially issued an order giving the government until Friday to answer why Rumeysa Ozturk was being detained. Talwani also ordered that Ozturk not be moved outside the district of Massachusetts without 48 hours' advance notice. Continue reading...

Amid outrage over Trump cabinet members sharing military details, we're forgetting to scrutinize decades of failed US policyThe revelation that top members of Donald Trump's administration disclosed secret US military plans against the Houthi militia in Yemen in a private group chat that included a prominent journalist has generated predictable outrage in Washington. Democrats are calling for a congressional investigation and the resignation of some of the officials involved in the breach, including the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the national security adviser, Mike Waltz.In an article published on Monday, the Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, outlined how he was able to follow the conversation among members of Trump's cabinet over two days leading up to a series of US airstrikes on 15 March. But in the widespread outrage over the sharing of military information on a Signal chat, one essential question is getting lost: why is Trump bombing Yemen in the first place? Five consecutive US presidents and administrations (George W Bush, Barack Obama, the first Trump administration, Joe Biden and the second Trump administration) have ordered military attacks on Yemen, which is the poorest country in the Middle East. Continue reading...

I have spent years fighting this reign of terror in the West Bank - and Hamdan Ballal's treatment is typical of it

Atlantic editor-in-chief added to a White House group chat discussing strike plans has history of serving in the Israeli military - and angering TrumpThough exactly how Jeffrey Goldberg ended up on a Signal group chat to discuss what were meant to be secret plans to bomb Yemen remains a mystery, posterity may render it one of recent US history's most serendipitous chance encounters.Had the fates been conspiring to add a journalist to the forum whose presence would inflict the maximum discomfort to Trump and his circle, they could hardly have chosen a more fitting candidate. Continue reading...