Good morning.
Thailand’s capital has been declared a disaster area after a massive earthquake hit neighboring Myanmar, Bangkok city hall has said. Bangkok’s governor confirmed that three people had been found dead while dozens were reported missing after a skyscraper under construction collapsed
At least 20 people died after being brought to a major hospital in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, a doctor told Agence France-Presse. In the Pyigyitagon township of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, eight people were killed and others are feared trapped after a building collapsed in the 7.7-magnitude quake, a witness told the Guardian.
Myanmar’s ruling junta has requested international humanitarian aid as it declared a state of emergency across six regions.
What is the scale of the destruction? Myanmar’s junta, which seized power in 2021, has cracked down on journalists, making it difficult to verify accounts or immediately gauge the extent of the damage. Follow on our live blog for further coverage from both countries.
Trump executive order on Smithsonian targets funding for ‘improper ideology’
Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order targeting funding to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution as he seeks to overhaul the world’s largest museum, education and research complex.
Placing the vice-president, JD Vance, in charge of reshaping the institution, the president claimed 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”.
The institution’s museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo will be affected, with the order specifically naming the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Women’s history museum.
Did Trump sign any other significant orders? Yes – on Thursday the president also moved to prevent many federal workers from unionizing.
Global anti-Elon Musk protests planned at nearly 200 Tesla showroom locations
Hundreds of protests at Tesla showrooms are planned across the US and internationally on Saturday in the largest protest yet against Elon Musk since Donald Trump’s inauguration.
By demonstrating outside200 Tesla locations worldwide, the protesters joining Tesla Takedown’s Global Day of Action aim to send a message that they are against the company’s CEO, who has displayed fascist salutes and gutted the US federal government, laying off thousands of workers, slashing budgets and entire agencies.
“Nobody voted for this, and nobody voted for Elon,” said Vickie Mueller Olvera, a Tesla Takedown organizer in the Bay Area. “He’s an unelected super-billionaire and he’s a thug.”
What are the protesters demanding? They ask that the public doesn’t buy a Tesla, sells off Tesla stock and join the Tesla Takedown protest movement.
In other news …
Journalists in Indonesia are being sent intimidating packages containing dead animals as threats to press freedom intensify in the world’s third largest democracy.
Donald Trump’s appointment of a career health researcher to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has triggered a significant rightwing backlash among Maga influencers and sections of his base.
A former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission has warned that the US is caught in a battle between “the rule of law versus the rule of billionaires”, saying “quid pro quo” deal making appears to be occuring inside the Trump administration.
Human rights organizations condemned the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, for her filmed visit to a notorious prison in El Salvador that is holding hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the US without a hearing.
Stat of the day: US state department has axed more than 300 visas over pro-Palestine protests
The US state department has revoked hundreds of visas and is scrutinizing hundreds more, according to official statements which show that it is mostly targeting foreign nationals involved in pro-Palestine activism. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, confirmed the scale of the crackdown, after footage circulated of masked immigration agents in plainclothes detaining Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, in broad daylight.
Don’t miss this: As a hate-filled kid, I turned to far-right ideology. Now I help others avoid that path
As an angry, troubled teenager in Sydney’s western suburbs, Matthew Quinn found his rage becoming channeled into racist hate. He formed a group with other “loners”, many of were deeply traumatized, and soon the group was talking about wanting to “get weapons and start killing people”. Now, he runs a disengagement program to pull others out of extremism. Here, he explains how he got out – and what doesn’t work.
Climate check: Fossil fuel companies given direct email line to Trump for exemption requests
Fossil fuel companies can now email Donald Trump directly and request he let them avoid air pollution rules via a presidential exemption, after his administration cleared the way for polluters to apply to evade regulation. Companies which are linked to tens of thousands of air pollution deaths each year in the US have until Monday to apply by email.
Last Thing: Weasel testicles and herbs … just what the doctor ordered?!
Medieval medicine suggested women could cure infertility by creating a pessary of weasel testicles with herbs and placing them in the cervix for three days, an exhibition at Cambridge University Library shows. Read along for the suggested cure for lice at the time (hint: it involves a poisonous heavy metal and roasted fruit) and feel, like the curator, “glad to be alive in the 21st century, for all our current problems”.
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