A 7.7-magnitude earthquake has hit central Burma, with powerful tremors felt across Thailand and China. At least 20 people have been reported dead after the quake struck near Mandalay, Burma’s second-largest city, followed by a strong 6.4 aftershock 11 minutes later. Hospital patients were forced to evacuate to a parking lot, many still hooked up to intravenous drips and oxygen tanks, as the earthquake rattled the city. Buildings were left in ruins, while power lines and several bridges collapsed. Dozens of injured people have been rushed to the hospital. Burma’s military regime has declared a state of emergency across six regions, including in the capital, Naypyitaw.

Burma is one of Asia’s poorest nations, still reeling from a devastating war sparked by a military coup in 2021. Humanitarian aid groups have warned of challenges in assessing the true toll of the damage and accessing impacted communities due to the ongoing conflict between the Burmese military and other militia groups. Electricity and communication lines are also down.

In Thailand, at least three people were reported dead in Bangkok when a 30-story skyscraper that was under construction collapsed. Dozens remain buried.

Predawn attacks by Israel have killed at least 14 people in Gaza. In total, more than 830 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them children, have been killed by Israeli fire after Israel unilaterally shattered the ceasefire less than two weeks ago. Over a dozen aid workers have been killed or gone missing in recent days, including workers from UNRWA, Palestine Red Crescent Society and World Central Kitchen.

Israel is also escalating its attacks on Lebanon, where it has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreed to in November. A strike this morning in the southern town of Kfar Tibnit has killed at least one person and injured eight others, including children. Meanwhile, scenes of chaos are being reported in the capital Beirut after Israel issued warnings to residents in the Hadath neighborhood it was about to bomb the area.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed he revoked the visa of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student who was abducted on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, this week by plainclothes federal agents. Ozturk was targeted for writing a student op-ed about Tufts’s response to Gaza solidarity protests. Rubio told reporters her case is part of a much larger scheme.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”

Hümeyra Pamuk: “You’re saying it could be more than 300 people?”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “Sure, I hope. I mean, at some point, I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them. But we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up. And by the way, we want to get rid of gang members, too.”

A federal court in Newark is hearing arguments from the lawyers of Mahmoud Khalil today as they argue for his case to be transferred to New Jersey and for his release from federal custody. Khalil, a former student protest leader at Columbia’s encampments, was first detained in New Jersey after he was arrested by ICE agents at his home in Manhattan earlier this month.

The U.S. has reached an agreement with the Colombian government that would allow the two countries to share biometric data collected from immigrants and asylum seekers. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem praised the deal, claiming the measure would target members of criminal organizations. Colombia has become a hub for Venezuelan immigrants and others as they journey north to the United States. The agreement signals a major shift within the government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who had previously signaled he would not collaborate with Trump’s inhumane immigration crackdown.

In El Salvador, protesters took to the streets of the capital San Salvador to mark three years since President Nayib Bukele enacted a state of exception that limits constitutional protections and grants unlimited powers to Salvadoran armed forces to arrest people suspected of being gang members. The policy has also been used to target human rights advocates, land and water defenders, and others critical of Bukele’s government.

Some 85,000 Salvadorans have been arrested and jailed over the past three years, without due process, as their relatives demand their release. Human rights groups have documented gross violations, with dozens of Salvadorans reported dead in police custody. Tens of thousands are being indefinitely held at the same maximum-security mega-prison complex where the Trump administration unlawfully sent hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants and asylum seekers from the U.S.

Marcela Ramírez: “We condemn arbitrary actions taken by President Donald Trump and followed by de facto President Nayib Bukele. We think it’s a policy to criminalize poverty, a xenophobic policy. The fact that the Salvadoran state submits to these kinds of measures is an absurd submission to the criminalizing policy of the U.S.”

In Turkey, police forces deployed pepper spray, rubber bullets and water cannons on student protesters who gathered in Istanbul Thursday, defying a ban on demonstrations. Massive protests have continued in Turkey for over a week, following the jailing of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, seen as the biggest rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ahead of elections in 2028. Over 1,900 protesters have been arrested since last week.
Meanwhile, the Turkish government is escalating its crackdown on journalists, imposing a 10-day broadcast ban on an opposition TV channel.

Ali Mahir Başarır: “Very harsh penalties have been issued to silence the opposition and threaten those who broadcast freely. Unfortunately, RTUK and this government is not only blacking out channels, it is also blacking out universities, young people and their hopes.”

Turkey on Thursday deported a BBC reporter amid Erdoğan’s crackdown on the press. Mark Lowen was taken from his Istanbul hotel on Wednesday and detained for 17 hours before being removed from Turkey.

U.S. airstrikes pounded at least 40 locations across Yemen early today, including in the capital Sana’a, as the Trump administration continues its military campaign against the Houthis. At least seven people were injured, according to early on-the-ground reports. A coalition of advocacy groups — DAWN, Action Corps and Just Foreign Policy — are demanding an end to the U.S. attacks, saying they violate the U.N. Charter and that “Congress should stop strikes on Yemen and uphold its sole authority to declare war under Article I of the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution.” At least 57 people have been killed since the U.S. bombing started on March 15 after Houthi fighters said they would resume Red Sea cargo attacks over Israel’s renewed all-out war on Gaza.

Federal Judge James Boasberg has ordered top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Michael Waltz, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to preserve all communications sent on a Signal group chat in the lead-up to the March 15 attack on Yemen. The watchdog group American Oversight sued over the officials’ use of Signal for the exchange, which accidentally included the editor of The Atlantic. Attorney General Pam Bondi has indicated the Justice Department is not planning to investigate the matter despite growing bipartisan calls.

Meanwhile, Axios is reporting Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar is planning to introduce articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth, Michael Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced it’s cutting 10,000 jobs. Combined with the wave of early retirements and buyouts since Trump came to power, the department will lose roughly a quarter of its workforce, going from 82,000 down to 62,000 employees. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said agencies will also be consolidated as part of the plan. The cuts will gut key agencies, including the CDC, FDA and NIH, and set back decades of advances in public health. Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray said, “In the middle of worsening nationwide outbreaks of bird flu and measles, not to mention a fentanyl epidemic, Trump is wrecking vital health agencies with the precision of a bull in a china shop.”

This comes as a leaked White House memo shows the Trump administration is preparing to lay off between 8% to 50% of federal workers across 22 agencies under the “first phase” of DOGE cuts. The plan includes axing half the staff at Housing and Urban Development, 30% of staff at the IRS and 8% of Justice Department staff.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson escalated Republican attacks on judges and the court system, telling reporters Congress could attempt to “eliminate” federal courts it disagrees with.

Speaker Mike Johnson: “We do have authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can — we can eliminate an entire district court. We have power — funding over the courts and all these other things.”

President Trump on Thursday withdrew New York Congressmember Elise Stefanik’s nomination for U.N. ambassador, citing fears Republicans could come closer to losing their narrow margin in the House if Stefanik’s seat goes up for a special election. This comes after Pennsylvania Democrats won two state elections this week, including a Senate seat in a district that voted for Trump over Kamala Harris by more than 15 points in November. Republicans now hold 218 seats, Democrats have 213, and there are four vacant House seats.

A New York county clerk refused to enforce a fine from Texas, issued to penalize a New York doctor for prescribing online abortion pills to a Texas patient. The Ulster County clerk cited New York state’s shield laws. The case is expected to eventually land at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In labor news, Trump has signed an executive order stripping union rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers, ordering 18 departments to stop engaging in any collective bargaining. Trump cited so-called national security concerns. The American Federation of Government Employees is challenging the order in court and said in a statement, “Trump’s threat to unions and working people across America is clear: fall in line or else. These threats will not work.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has created a direct email address for industrial polluters like coal-fired power plants to easily request exemptions from the federal government to Clean Air Act rules. The rules include limits on mercury production and other pollutants known to damage human health and the environment. Climate Action Campaign likened the process to a “gold-plated, 'get-out-of-permitting free' card.”

Robert McChesney, co-founder of the advocacy group Free Press and a tireless defender of media and democracy, has died at the age of 72. McChesney was a prolific author, with nearly three dozen books on media, democracy and digital rights, including “Rich Media, Poor Democracy.” He was also a beloved professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Bob McChesney appeared on Democracy Now! multiple times over the years. In 2016, he addressed corporate consolidation and control over the internet.

Robert McChesney: “We have to really have a serious discussion in this country about why do we pay so much more for broadband access and cellphone service than almost any other country in the world, sometimes by double, triple the rates for crappier service. Is having these private companies, which are the equivalent of the health insurance companies, gouging us and setting super high prices and paying off the regulators and politicians a very rational way for a free society to have the central component of our communication infrastructure controlled?”

That was Robert McChesney speaking in 2016. He’s just died at the age of 72. Click here to see all our interviews with Robert McChesney.

In his latest attack on cultural institutions, President Trump signed an executive order Thursday appointing JD Vance to eliminate “divisive race-centered ideology” from Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo. The order, called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” aims to remove exhibits and programs that portray U.S. history and values as “inherently harmful and oppressive.” It cites in particular the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. The Smithsonian operates independently since it was established as a public-private partnership by Congress in 1846. It receives roughly 60% of its funding from the federal government.