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This image taken from video provided by Viral Tonganz shows vehicles in traffic after a strong 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit near Tonga, prompting an initial tsunami warning that was later lifted for the Pacific island country. (Viral Tonganz via AP)
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A strong 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit near Tonga, prompting an initial tsunami warning that was later lifted for the Pacific island country.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at a depth of 29 kilometers (18 miles) and was centered about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of the main island in the early morning hours of Monday local time. Hours later, a second 6.1 magnitude quake hit in the same area.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued an alert following the first quake saying hazardous waves could be possible but later said there was no longer a tsunami threat. A warning was also cancelled hours later by the country's disaster management office.
Tsunami sirens could be heard after the 1:18 a.m. quake urging residents to move inland in a live video streamed by the Tonga Broadcasting Commission. People in the capital, Nuku'alofa, were seen moving inland or to higher ground before officials gave the all-clear for residents to return home.
There were no initial reports of casualties, TBC said, and Tongans posting on social media reported being able to place calls with most of the inhabited island chains that make up the country. It was too soon to know the extent of any damage, which would be assessed in daylight, the broadcaster added, but none was immediately reported.
Tongan taekwondo athlete Pita Taufatofua posted to Facebook that items fell from shelves and tables and pictures fell from the walls during the shaking.
“Was hard to stand up,” he wrote. “Never felt an earthquake go for that long.”
Tonga is a country in Polynesia made up of 171 islands with a population of just over 100,000 people, most of whom live on the main island of Tongatapu. It is 1,800 km (1,100 miles) north east of New Zealand and situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a tectonic region of earthquakes and volcanoes.
The low-lying island nation was devastated by a tsunami in 2022 that was prompted by a volcanic eruption. Three people were killed.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Red Cross says devastation is of a level not seen in Asia for over a century as more than 1,700 people killed
Rescue volunteers, many of them poorly equipped local people, raced to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings across central Myanmar, two days after a huge earthquake killed more than 1,700 people in the country and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.
Red Cross officials said Myanmar was facing “a level of devastation that hasn't been seen over a century in Asia”, after a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the centre of the country on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The quake has damaged and destroyed countless buildings including hospitals, damaged roads and bridges, and brought down power supplies, phone and internet connections.
“People who need help are continually calling us, but even now there are difficulties for them to reach us,” said a rescue worker in Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city.
Ko Doe, a rescue worker in Sagaing, said his team believed as many as 100 bodies were still to be removed from collapsed buildings in the town. “A bad smell is coming from the bodies that remain trapped, and which we are unable to save immediately. We need backhoes, cranes, and heavy-duty diggers to demolish the damaged buildings and retrieve the bodies,” he said.
In Thailand, rescue efforts continued at the site of a collapsed 30-storey tower in the Chatuchak district of Bangkok, which fell to the floor while under construction, trapping dozens of workers. Officials from Bangkok metropolitan administration said signs of life had been detected in one area of the site early on Sunday morning. Eleven people have been confirmed dead and workers are frantically searching for 78 who remain missing.
Myanmar's ruling junta said in a statement on Saturday that at least 1,700 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in the country, with at least 300 more missing.
The true scale of the devastation in Myanmar, which has been gripped by conflict for the past four years, could take days or even weeks to emerge, according to aid experts.
The US Geological Service's predictive modelling estimated Myanmar's death toll could top 10,000 and losses could exceed the country's annual economic output.
On Sunday morning, a small aftershock struck, sending people scurrying out of a hotel for safety, after a similar tremor felt late Saturday evening, AFP reported.
Truckloads of firefighters gathered at one of Mandalay's main fire stations to be dispatched to sites around the city.
China and Russia, two allies of the junta, have sent aid and personnel, while India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore have also sent assistance.
The US pledged $2m (£1.5m) in aid “through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organisations” and said in a statement that an emergency response team from USAID, which is undergoing massive cuts under the Trump administration, was deploying to Myanmar.
It follows a rare request by Myanmar's isolated junta for international help. The junta chief, Min Aung Hlaing, said on Sunday he called on “all military and civilian hospitals, as well as healthcare workers” to “work together in a coordinated and efficient manner”, according to state-run media.
The earthquakes have compounded the crisis in Myanmar, which was plunged into war when the military seized power in a coup in 2021.
It is facing an armed opposition formed of people's defence forces, which emerged to oppose the coup, and more established ethnic armed groups, that have long demanded independence.
The shadow national unity government, set up to oppose the junta, said anti-coup groups had declared a two-week partial ceasefire in quake-affected regions starting on Sunday. The military continued airstrikes following the quake, including just hours afterwards.
The national unity government said it would “collaborate with the UN and NGOs to ensure security, transportation, and the establishment of temporary rescue and medical camps” in areas it controls, according to the statement, which was released on social media.
Aid agencies have warned that responding to the disaster will be complex, given the conflict and the severe level of need. Even before the earthquake 15 million people – about a third of the country's population – were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity. The conflict has displaced 3.5 million people and pushed the economy and health services into crisis.
The junta has been repeatedly accused of weaponsing aid, blocking supplies to areas where its opponents are present.
An assessment by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said hospitals and health facilities warned of “a severe shortage of medical supplies” and said damage to infrastructure such as roads was hampering efforts to respond to the earthquake.
In some of the country's hardest-hit areas, people told Reuters that government assistance was scarce so far, leaving people to fend for themselves. The entire town of Sagaing near the quake's epicentre was devastated, said Han Zin, a local person.
“What we are seeing here is widespread destruction – many buildings have collapsed into the ground,” he said by phone, adding that much of the town had been without electricity since the disaster hit and drinking water was running out. “We have received no aid, and there are no rescue workers in sight.”
But some aid and rescue personnel were beginning to arrive. Indian military aircraft made sorties into Myanmar on Saturday, including ferrying supplies and search-and-rescue crews to Naypyidaw, the purpose-made capital, parts of which have been wrecked by the earthquake.
The Indian army will help set up a field hospital in Mandalay, and two navy ships carrying supplies are heading to Myanmar's commercial capital of Yangon, said India's foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Teams of Chinese rescue personnel have arrived, including one that crossed overland from its south-western province of Yunnan, China's embassy in Myanmar said on social media.
A 78-member team from Singapore, accompanied by rescue dogs, was operating in Mandalay on Sunday, Myanmar state media said.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement that “destruction has been extensive, and humanitarian needs are growing by the hour”.
It added: “With temperatures rising and the monsoon season approaching in just weeks, there is an urgent need to stabilise affected communities before secondary crises emerge.”
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
Atlantic editor says Trump adviser's defense for accidentally adding him to war plans chat was implausible
Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has dismissed the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz for how he was included in a Trump administration group text chat about – and in advance of – the recent bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Goldberg said Waltz's theory that his contact was “sucked in” to his phone via “somebody else's contact” was implausible.
“This isn't The Matrix,” Goldberg told NBC's Kristen Welker on Sunday's Meet the Press, referring to the classic science fiction movie about humans unknowingly living in a simulated reality. “Phone numbers don't just get sucked into other phones.
“I don't know what he's talking about there.”
Goldberg continued: “You know, very frequently in journalism, the most obvious explanation is the explanation. My phone number was in his phone because my phone number is in his phone.”
Goldberg made waves when the magazine, over two days beginning 24 March, published details of a group chat that included senior Trump administration officials discussing a then imminent US attack on Houthi installations and senior personnel.
The chat, on the Signal app, unnerved many in Washington about the security precautions being taken by neophyte administration officials to ensure national security, triggering several days of headlines over whether the texts amounted to a breach.
Donald Trump on Sunday repeated his position that the disclosures were a mistake – and the president denied reports that Waltz had offered to resign. “No, he didn't,” Trump said. “There was no reason for him to.”
Earlier, Trump said Waltz is “a very good man, and he will continue to do a good job”.
On Sunday, Goldberg claimed that Waltz is “telling everyone that he's never met me or spoken to me – that's simply not true”. Waltz had said during a meeting with Trump and ambassadors at the White House that he “never met” Goldberg.
“There's a lot of journalists … who have made big names for themselves making up lies about this president,” Waltz said, without offering evidence. Referring to Goldberg, he added: “This one in particular I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.”
The national security council (NSC) confirmed the authenticity of the messages and said it was reviewing how Goldberg got into the Waltz-initiated chat. Theories range from unintentionally selecting Goldberg's number; his number being under the name of a security official supposed to be included; to intentional sabotage.
But Goldberg told NBC News: “This has become a somewhat farcical situation. There's no subterfuge here. My number was in his phone. He mistakenly added me to the group chat. There we go.”
Democratic US senator Mark Warner continued to press the issue on Sunday, saying the Republican White House officials involved in the Signal breach risked American lives.
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“If you had been a traditional military officer or a CIA caseworker and you were this sloppy and careless with this classified information, you would be fired,” Warner, of Virginia, told host Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week. “No doubt about it.”
Warner – a member of the Senate intelligence committee – said he, too, uses Signal because it is safer than texting. “I actually encourage people to use Signal. But that still doesn't mean, because it's safer, you can put classified information” on there, he added.
Congressman Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and former chairperson of the US House's intelligence committee, told the same outlet that he welcomed a review into what has come to be known as Signalgate and “whether or not these types of conversations should occur”.
Nonetheless, he said he considered the Houthi strikes “a great operation”.
Susan Rice, who served as the national security adviser to former president Barack Obama, told the MeidasTouch podcast that the leak was “extraordinarily reckless” and “unprecedented”.
Rice said even the existence of the conversations is classified.
“This would never be tolerated in a normal administration,” Rice said. “They'd be fired on the spot.”
Alexander Stubb – who played golf with Trump this weekend – suggested deadline and US sanctions package
Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin's stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said after spending nine hours with the US president – including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.
Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.
Stubb pointed out that a third golf partner on Saturday, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, already has a bill in the US Senate proposing what he has described as “bone-breaking” US sanctions on Russia if it did not accept an unconditional ceasefire.
The round of golf diplomacy seemed to make a positive impression on Trump, who wrote afterwards on his Truth Social platform: “I just played a round of Golf with Alexander Stubb, President of Finland. He is a very good player, and we won the Men's Member-Guest Golf Tournament at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County …
“President Stubb and I look forward to strengthening the partnership between the United States and Finland, and that includes the purchase and development of a large number of badly needed Icebreakers for the U.S., delivering Peace and International Security for our Countries, and the World.”
Asked how he thought Trump would express his impatience with Putin, Stubb said things would be clear in a matter of days. “When you spend seven hours with someone, you at least get an intuition of the direction in which we're going,” he said.
Stubb – in London to see the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer – has emerged as a critical figure in the Ukraine talks process, and, like Starmer, said engagement rather than disengagement with Trump was the best way to persuade America not to abandon Ukraine.
Looking sprightly after his overnight flight to London, the Finnish president said: “I think we're probably moving into the direction where the Americans are seeing Russia for what it's worth. In other words, the overall ceasefire has been agreed by the United States, by Ukraine and by Europe, but not by Russia.
“The half-ceasefire has been broken by Russia, and I think America, and my sense is also the president of the United States, is running out of patience with Russia. I think that's good news for engagement and negotiation. So this is what I sensed over the weekend as well.”
He explained: “My message in the conversations I have with the [US] president is that we need a ceasefire, and we need a deadline for the ceasefire, and then we need to pay a price for breaking a ceasefire. So number one, we need a ceasefire date, and I would prefer that to be Easter, say, 20 April, when President Trump has been in office for three months. If by then it's not accepted or is broken by Russia, there needs to be consequences. And those consequences should be sanctions, maximum sanctions, and we continue the pressure up until the 20th and then we'll see what happens.”
He added: “I think it would be quite a useful combination at this moment to get a deadline from the president of the United States with a sanctions package coming from the Senate.”
Stubb said it was not for him to give the US advice on the kind of sanctions it could impose, but Trump said on Sunday, after meeting Stubb, that he was considering secondary sanctions on any country that bought Russian oil.
Stubb said: “We in Finland understand not to trust Putin. Don't underestimate his capacity to delay. But we need to call his bluff. It's typically Russian to say, ‘yes, Mr President, there's a ceasefire'. And after that, say, ‘but the conditions are …' That's not the way in which I think we should negotiate with the Russians. The only thing they understand is power.”
The Finnish president stressed it would be wrong for Europe to loosen its own sanctions now, as demanded by Putin as the price for a Black Sea peace deal, saying any European sanctions relaxation should be strictly conditions-based.
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He remains a good deal more sceptical than Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff about Putin's bona fides. Witkoff had said it was preposterous to think Russia would want to seize further European land if it was given the four main Ukrainian regions it currently party occupies.
For all the golf diplomacy, Stubb has no compunction in criticising Witkoff, who seemed in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson to regard the referendums held in Russian-held regions and Crimea as a legitimate expression of their wish to be annexed by Russia.
Stubb said: “Anyone who says that a referendum that has been conducted in the Crimean peninsula is somehow valid doesn't know what international relations means. We fundamentally disagree with that approach. I personally will never, ever recognise any territorial acquisition by Russia to Ukraine.”
Stubb has been pressing his fellow leaders to be more specific about what they are seeking to achieve. “A ceasefire is about monitoring the line of contact and can entail some kind of coalition of the willing in the air, sea, and then also in land,” he said.
“But a completely different story is the actual peace agreement. That's when you get into traditional peacekeeping, which is usually UN mandated, and so on and so forth.”
He explained: “What we are saying in Finland, from the northern flank, having the 1340-kilometre (830-mile) border of Europe with Russia, is that that border actually starts from northern Norway and covers all the way, and if you count Belarus as part of it, that's 5000 kilometres (3107 miles). So that's the border that we need to protect.
“That's why we are not probably going to provide troops in the ceasefire stage, but we can definitely do something when the peace agreement is there, if there's an international mandate.”
Either way, Stubb suggests like Starmer, there would have to be some kind of US involvement – something Trump has not yet offered. But, Stubb said: “I don't exclude that some of the monitoring is done by Americans and American technology, because it's non-military activity. So, there's so many ways in which you can do this.”
Like Graham, Stubb is interested in protecting Ukraine's sovereignty in any peace agreement not by offering Nato membership, but instead through a clear political statement as part of the agreement that Ukraine would be given automatic Nato membership if Russia breached the ceasefire.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, at the weekend proposed a variation by which Ukraine would not be offered Nato membership but instead the protection of Nato's article 5 security guarantee. Stubb said her ideas would be studied closely, but hinted at scepticism, saying article 5 was the essence of Nato. “We think that the core of this war is about the triangular existence of a nation state, which is independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.
He recalled how Finland lost its sovereignty after the winter war and the war of continuation. “In other words, world war two, we weren't able to decide the clubs where we wanted to participate. We also lost 10% of our territory, including the areas where my grandparents, my father, were born.”
Stubb, who clearly sees Ukraine as an entry-point for a wider, more formal pact with the UK on security, said: “One of the things that I'm particularly pleased about in this tragic war is that we are now seeing a Britain engaged again in Europe. And before coming here, had I had enough time, I would have written a column in the Guardian saying ‘Britain is back'.
“We are now seeing British and French leadership in brokering the European position, not only here in London, but also in Paris, and in the way in which prime minister Starmer is conducting the discussions his national security team, led by Jonathan Powell. This is a great opportunity for Britain to engage with Europe again and vice versa. So if this could be now the embryo of a new British-EU relationship, I would warmly welcome that.”
Despite his multilingual, academic pro-European background, Stubb is in some ways an ideal conciliator with Trump since he spent three years at university in the US and was at one point considered good enough for the Finnish national golf team –something he modestly admitted was equivalent to being selected for the English ice-hockey team.
“I did play [golf] seriously. And I played at the British amateur Open at Litchfield sometime in the 1980s. I missed the cut by one,” he ruefully recalled, “and then I went to study in the US with the dream of becoming a professional. But I basically quit after three months and got serious about studying.”
Stubb said tactfully he would not analyse Trump's golf game for hints of his personality, but said he was “very impressive, and I'm not only speaking because of his age, but he hit the ball very well. It was quite fun in the sense that we were on the same team, so we were playing best ball … we were alternating giving an impact for our teams.”
Stubb said of their game: “It's a good, good, good, good way of spending the better part of seven hours together with the president. So we had breakfast, and then we had a go round the course, and then we had lunch, and we had sitting with Lindsey Graham there, and then we had legendary Gary Player, the South African grand slam winner, at the tender age of 89. It is a good way to get to know one another.”
Golf diplomacy has been seen as the entry ticket to Trump's heart since the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe successfully courted him in his first term by playing endless rounds. Stubb said it was feasible in golf to mix pleasure with business, so to discuss Russia's trustworthiness “between shots”.
“Anyway, for sure I prefer a golf course to meeting rooms,” he said.
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A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck near Mandalay in Myanmar around midday on Friday, killing over 1,700 people, causing widespread destruction, toppling numerous buildings, and damaging critical infrastructure, including the city's airport.
The quake resulted from the rupture of a 200-kilometre (125-mile) section of the fault, leading to extensive damage across central Myanmar, particularly in the Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, and Bago regions and Shan State. Due to major telecommunication disruptions, information remains scarce from areas beyond Mandalay and Naypyidaw.
Also Read: Why was Myanmar earthquake so deadly? Scientists explain
The shockwaves travelled to Thailand; the tremors were felt across much of the country, causing the collapse of a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok, nearly 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the epicentre.
While Bangkok experienced strong shaking that prompted mass evacuations and a temporary suspension of public transport, overall damage to the city's buildings and infrastructure was minimal compared to the devastation in Myanmar.
Also Read: Despite Myanmar earthquake devastation, junta continues to bomb rebel towns
The earthquake claimed 18 lives, including 11 workers who died when the Bangkok building collapsed. Dozens remain trapped under the rubble, and 33 others sustained injuries.
According to the BBC, Rebecca Bell, a tectonics expert at Imperial College London, explained that faults—cracks in the Earth's crust—form to accommodate tectonic movement, allowing plates to "slither" sideways.
Earthquakes can originate from depths of up to 700 km (435 miles) below the surface. However, this particular quake struck just 10 km beneath the surface, making it very shallow, which intensified the shaking felt above ground.
Measuring 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale, the earthquake was extremely powerful, releasing more energy than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, as per the US Geological Survey.
Bell attributed the quake's magnitude to the nature of the fault.
"The straight nature [of the fault] means earthquakes can rupture over large areas - and the larger the area of the fault that slips, the larger the earthquake," she told BBC.
She further noted that "there have been six magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes in this region in the last century."
Additionally, this fault's straight alignment allows energy to travel along its length, which stretches 1,200 km southward toward Thailand.
Bangkok's soft soil amplifies seismic waves, slowing them down and increasing their intensity, making the ground shaking more severe.
The earthquake also impacted parts of neighbouring Thailand, causing an under-construction skyscraper to collapse in Bangkok.
Rescue efforts entered their third day as emergency teams, using drones and sniffer dogs, continued searching for survivors. At least 76 people remained trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed building.
Dramatic footage from Bangkok captured high-rise buildings swaying during the earthquake, with rooftop pools spilling over. However, the only reported skyscraper collapse was the unfinished headquarters of the auditor-general's office in Chatuchak district.
Christian Málaga-Chuquitaype, a senior lecturer in earthquake engineering at Imperial College London, noted that before 2009, Bangkok lacked comprehensive safety standards for earthquake-resistant construction. As a result, older buildings were particularly vulnerable.
This is not uncommon, as constructing earthquake-resistant buildings is often more costly, and Thailand, unlike Myanmar, does not frequently experience major earthquakes.
Emily So, a professor of architectural engineering at the University of Cambridge, pointed out that older buildings can be reinforced, as has been done in California, western Canada, and New Zealand.
Donald Trump has said he is “not joking” about trying to serve a third term as US president.
“There are methods which you could do it,” he said in a telephone interview with NBC News, in the clearest indication yet that he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends in 2029.
But he added: “It is far too early to think about it.”
The 22nd Amendment, which was added to the constitution in 1951 after Franklin D Roosevelt was elected as president four times in a row, says: “No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.”
NBC's Kristen Welker asked Mr Trump if one potential route to a third term was having vice president JD Vance run for the top job and “then pass the baton to you”.
“Well, that's one,” the president responded. “But there are others too. There are others.”
“Can you tell me another?” she asked.
“No,” he replied.
Mr Trump has mused before about serving longer than two terms, generally with jokes to friendly audiences.
“Am I allowed to run again?” he said during a House of Representatives Republican retreat in January.
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An armed resistance movement against Myanmar's military-run government alleged on Sunday that the junta has been carrying out airstrikes on villages even as the country is in the grip of crises precipitated by a massive earthquake. The tremors killed 1700 people and injured over 3400.
The Karen National Union, one of Myanmar's oldest ethnic armies, claimed in a statement that the junta "continues to carry out airstrikes targeting civilian areas, even as the population suffers tremendously from the earthquake".
It said the military must prioritise relief efforts, but it is focused on "deploying forces to attack its people", Reuters reported.
The earthquake has shattered critical infrastructure in several cities in Myanmar, including airports, bridges and roads. The rubble and communication collapse have prevented aid workers from reaching those trapped under the debris. The stench emanating from corpses has permeated many towns, including Mandalay.
Also read: Why was Myanmar earthquake so deadly? Scientists explain
The United Nations has also flagged a crippling shortage of medical supplies.
Myanmar has been locked in civil war with multiple armed opposition groups since a 2021 coup when the military seized power from the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
According to the Free Burma Rangers, a relief organisation, military jets bombarded Karen state, near the KNU headquarters, shortly after the earthquake.
The epicenter of the 7.7-magnitude quake was in an area held by junta forces. However, it also destroyed territories held by rebels.
Richard Horsey, the senior Myanmar adviser at Crisis Group, said some anti-junta forces have halted their offensives, but fighting continues elsewhere.
"The regime also continues to launch airstrikes, including in affected areas. That needs to stop," he said.
He added that the regime was not providing much visible support in quake-hit areas.
"Local fire brigades, ambulance crews, and community organisations have mobilised, but the military - who would normally be mobilised to support in such a crisis - are nowhere to be seen," Horsey said.
With inputs from Reuters
Russian philosopher and political theorist often referred to as “Putin's brain” Alexander Dugin joins CNN's Fareed Zakaria from Moscow to discuss Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, and where he sees commonalities between the two figures.
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Israel Police arrested four West Bank residents for incitement and support of terrorism on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem's Old City over the past week, Israel Police announced on Sunday.Three of these terror suspects were found to have expressed support for a terror organization, with investigations finding inciting content on their mobile phones, which they had posted online. Further investigation found that one suspect had published photos of terrorists holding weapons and wearing al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades headbands. The same individual also shared videos depicting bus bombings.Two of the other suspects, residents of the Tulkarm area in their 20s and 30s, shared images of terrorists who had been killed by Israel forces, including a photo of Saleh al-Arouri, who was considered responsible for all Hamas attacks in the West Bank, and was killed in Beirut on January 2, 2024. AdvertisementA separate incident involving a man in his 60s was also recorded when police received a report that the man was standing in the Dome of the Rock plaza reciting inciting statements while surrounded by a group of youths. Palestinians walk near the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in September 2024. (credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)A search of the individual revealed papers that allegedly contained the inciting content that he read aloud. 'The knights of al-Quds'Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
Three of these terror suspects were found to have expressed support for a terror organization, with investigations finding inciting content on their mobile phones, which they had posted online. Further investigation found that one suspect had published photos of terrorists holding weapons and wearing al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades headbands. The same individual also shared videos depicting bus bombings.Two of the other suspects, residents of the Tulkarm area in their 20s and 30s, shared images of terrorists who had been killed by Israel forces, including a photo of Saleh al-Arouri, who was considered responsible for all Hamas attacks in the West Bank, and was killed in Beirut on January 2, 2024. AdvertisementA separate incident involving a man in his 60s was also recorded when police received a report that the man was standing in the Dome of the Rock plaza reciting inciting statements while surrounded by a group of youths. Palestinians walk near the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in September 2024. (credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)A search of the individual revealed papers that allegedly contained the inciting content that he read aloud. 'The knights of al-Quds'Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
Further investigation found that one suspect had published photos of terrorists holding weapons and wearing al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades headbands. The same individual also shared videos depicting bus bombings.Two of the other suspects, residents of the Tulkarm area in their 20s and 30s, shared images of terrorists who had been killed by Israel forces, including a photo of Saleh al-Arouri, who was considered responsible for all Hamas attacks in the West Bank, and was killed in Beirut on January 2, 2024. AdvertisementA separate incident involving a man in his 60s was also recorded when police received a report that the man was standing in the Dome of the Rock plaza reciting inciting statements while surrounded by a group of youths. Palestinians walk near the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in September 2024. (credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)A search of the individual revealed papers that allegedly contained the inciting content that he read aloud. 'The knights of al-Quds'Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
Two of the other suspects, residents of the Tulkarm area in their 20s and 30s, shared images of terrorists who had been killed by Israel forces, including a photo of Saleh al-Arouri, who was considered responsible for all Hamas attacks in the West Bank, and was killed in Beirut on January 2, 2024. AdvertisementA separate incident involving a man in his 60s was also recorded when police received a report that the man was standing in the Dome of the Rock plaza reciting inciting statements while surrounded by a group of youths. Palestinians walk near the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in September 2024. (credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)A search of the individual revealed papers that allegedly contained the inciting content that he read aloud. 'The knights of al-Quds'Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
A separate incident involving a man in his 60s was also recorded when police received a report that the man was standing in the Dome of the Rock plaza reciting inciting statements while surrounded by a group of youths. Palestinians walk near the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in September 2024. (credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)A search of the individual revealed papers that allegedly contained the inciting content that he read aloud. 'The knights of al-Quds'Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
A search of the individual revealed papers that allegedly contained the inciting content that he read aloud. 'The knights of al-Quds'Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
Among these were statements such as "We are defending the homeland; we are the knights of al-Quds (Jerusalem)," police stated.His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
His phone also contained photos of terrorists that he had published online, police added. Stay updated with the latest news! Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter Subscribe Now The individual was arrested and taken in for questioning. Advertisement
Stay updated with the latest news!
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A nurse, a civil servant and a teacher, among thousands of Palestinians detained without charges, were not informed their relatives had died in Israeli attacks
‘He insisted we take him to the graves': the Palestinian civilians coming home to catastrophe
For six months after it became impossible, Ahmed Wael Dababish still dreamed of a simple reunion: the day he could once again hug his wife, Asma, his two daughters and his young son.
A nurse from Gaza, Dababish last saw his family in the early hours of one night in December 2023, when Israeli troops attacked a school where they had sought shelter.
Soldiers ordered men into the courtyard, then detained many of them, including Dababish. He was held incommunicado for 13 months without charge, trial, access to a lawyer, or any communication with his family. So when an Israeli shell killed Asma, 29, and their youngest daughter, three-year-old Ghina, in August 2024, there was no way to send news to him.
He was released in February under the ceasefire deal after turning 33 in prison, and was briefly overwhelmed when he saw his father and cousins waiting to welcome him home.
“It was amazing to see someone I knew,” he said. The joy at being surrounded by familiar, beloved faces, after a year of hunger, torture and isolation from everyone he knew, lasted until he asked about his wife and children.
Dababish's father called up a photo on his phone to help break the unbearable news. It showed Ghina, his baby, laid out for burial beside her young cousin. “This is the moment I still cannot believe,” Dababish said, breaking down again at the memory. “It never crossed my mind that they could be killed.”
As he sobbed, his two surviving children, six-year-old Muadh and eight-year-old Aisha, tried to comfort him with hugs.
His tragedy is not unique. The Observer spoke to three Palestinians from Gaza whose immediate family were killed while they were held by the Israeli military or in Israeli civilian prisons without charge or trial. They only learned about their losses when they were released months later.
The three men are civilians – a nurse, a civil servant and a headteacher of a primary school – who say they have never taken up arms. They had no access to a lawyer in jail and were not allowed to communicate with their families.
Legal rights groups say there are likely to be many other detainees from Gaza who have lost close family in Israeli attacks, but have not been told of their deaths.
Family visits, letters or calls have been banned for Palestinians held by Israel since 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, and televisions and radios have been removed from cells.
“They are enforcing this isolation on prisoners. They do not want them to know anything about their families and their loved ones,” said Tala Nasir of the Palestinian prisoners' rights organisation Addameer.
Prisoners who are able to secure legal representation can sometimes get news from their lawyers, but there are certainly hundreds and probably thousands of detainees from Gaza who do not have a lawyer.
Most are held under Israel's unlawful combatants law, which allows indefinite detention without producing evidence. The state can hold someone for 45 days before allowing access to a lawyer or bringing them in front of a judge to authorise the detention. At the start of the war, those periods were extended to 180 and 75 days respectively.
Amnesty International said the system “legalises incommunicado detention, enables enforced disappearance and must be repealed”. Despite thousands of detentions, there have been no known trials of anyone captured in Gaza since 7 October 2023.
There is no government provision of lawyers to Palestinian detainees and it is impossible for legal aid groups to support prisoners on the scale now needed, said Jessica Montell, executive director of HaMoked, an Israeli group with decades of experience fighting for Palestinian rights through the Israeli courts.
“I'm sure it is the case that the vast majority of Gaza detainees have not seen a lawyer,” said Montell, adding that HaMoked's teams have visited a few dozen detainees from Gaza, out of thousands held inside Israel. “There's nothing like a public defender's office that is going to meet with all of them. There is no obligation on the state to provide lawyers.”
Bureaucratic obstacles and the remoteness of many detention camps and prisons further limit visits. When lawyers do manage to meet detainees from Gaza, breaking painful news is a regular part of their discussions, according to Nasir.
“Many of the prisoners we were following had one or two of their family members killed in Gaza and they did not know at all. It's so heartbreaking, and it's really hard for the lawyer to tell this information to the prisoner.”
In December, the Israeli state said it was holding more than 3,400 Palestinians from Gaza under the unlawful combatants law, in response to a high court petition from campaign group the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).
At least 1,000 people detained in Gaza after 7 October 2023 were released under the ceasefire agreement that broke down this month, but thousands are still in jail. Tal Steiner, director of PCATI, said Israeli prisons were holding about 1,500 detainees from Gaza and that “it would be reasonable to estimate that several hundred [Palestinian] detainees are still being held in military camps.”
The Israeli military declined to say how many Palestinians from Gaza it holds, or how many have met lawyers, but said it did not limit the content of legal meetings held with prisoners or what documents lawyers could bring to them. “Many detainees have already exercised their right to meet with a lawyer,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “Israel rejects claims that there is a policy of isolating Palestinian detainees from the outside world.”
The Israeli military, the statement added, respected national and international law in its treatment of detainees and rejected all allegations concerning systemic abuse.
Civil servant Ibrahim Dawood is among those freed during the ceasefire. He said he never had access to a lawyer and was physically attacked when he asked for a chance to prove his innocence.
“My friends taught me some words in Hebrew, how to ask the soldiers politely for a meeting with the officer, asking only for justice. They would beat me on the way there and back,” he said. “I kept telling them that they should listen to me and not accuse me of things I didn't do.” He spent 13 months in prison in the Negev desert, arriving there badly injured after an Israeli attack on the school where he was sheltering with his family.
Ill health, hunger and the beatings weighed on him, but just as bad was the mental pain of being separated from his family, he said. “I didn't know anything about their fate and knew they had no information about what was happening to me.”
The relief of release, when it came, was very fleeting. He found out that the family home in al-Fakhura, near Jabaliya, had been destroyed in an Israeli airstrike that killed his father, sister, his sister-in-law and her three children. The moment when he heard the news – and collapsed in grief – was captured on video and widely shared on social media.
“The people who should have welcomed me home had been taken from me by the [Israeli] army. On top of the pain of injury and captivity came the pain of losing beloved relatives who I will never see again.”
His surviving family is fragmented between the north and south, and he cannot find space to bring his wife, children and widowed mother together under one roof.
The Israel Prison Service (IPS), which runs civilian jails, said “all prisoners are detained according to the law”. Asked about the abuse and isolation described by Dababish and Dawood, a spokesperson said: “We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility.”
Dababish said he also never saw a lawyer and that Israeli officials had accused him of being a Hamas member because he was a nurse in a state-run hospital. Hamas has governed Gaza for nearly two decades. “I responded that I was a displaced person with my wife and children in an evacuation school, in an area the army had designated as safe.”
The lack of contact with the outside world, or any due process, violates the Geneva conventions, rights groups say. Dababish said it added to the agonies of detention, deepening prisoners' despair.
“It felt like we were living in a grave. You couldn't know anything about what was happening outside, where your family was, what was going on.”
His home was bombed, so he is living with his parents and two surviving children in a school turned shelter – which sparks painful memories of the night he was detained – and has little sense of security.
All his family's worst tragedies have played out in similarly repurposed schools – meant to be places of relative safety for civilians fleeing Israel's war on Hamas. His wife and daughter were killed in another school, when a shell hit a classroom in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City. “They were displaced in an evacuation shelter. They did nothing wrong,” he said.
Haunted by loss and memories of detention, he is trying to keep going for his children.
“I went to the hospital, registered my name again for work and am waiting for them to call me.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz appointed Col. (res) Yaakov (Kobi) Blitstein, currently Defense Ministry deputy director-general, as the head of the Directorate for the Voluntary Emigration of Gaza Residents, the ministry announced on Sunday.Blitstein previously served as director-general of the foreign ministry and energy ministry, respectively, acting director-general of the finance ministry, head of national infrastructure at the finance ministry, and deputy director-general for planning and infrastructure development at the transportation ministry.Blitstein holds a BA in economics, political science, and sociology from Bar-Ilan University, a second BA in law from Ono Academic College, and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. He is also a licensed attorney. The directorate, which was established a week ago, will operate under the authority of the defense minister and is authorized to coordinate with international organizations and other relevant bodies, as well as all relevant government ministries.The directorate's task is to prepare for, and facilitate the safe and supervised "voluntary emigration of Gaza residents to third countries, including securing their transit, establishing a designated pedestrian route and checkpoint infrastructure in Gaza, and coordinating the necessary infrastructure for land, sea, and air exits to destination countries," the ministry clarified.PALESTINIANS MAKE their way between southern and northern Gaza on Sunday after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)Israel Katz statementDefense Minister Israel Katz stated, "We are determined to realize the vision of US President Donald Trump to enable the voluntary emigration of Gaza residents who wish to relocate to various parts of the world."Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
Blitstein previously served as director-general of the foreign ministry and energy ministry, respectively, acting director-general of the finance ministry, head of national infrastructure at the finance ministry, and deputy director-general for planning and infrastructure development at the transportation ministry.Blitstein holds a BA in economics, political science, and sociology from Bar-Ilan University, a second BA in law from Ono Academic College, and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. He is also a licensed attorney. The directorate, which was established a week ago, will operate under the authority of the defense minister and is authorized to coordinate with international organizations and other relevant bodies, as well as all relevant government ministries.The directorate's task is to prepare for, and facilitate the safe and supervised "voluntary emigration of Gaza residents to third countries, including securing their transit, establishing a designated pedestrian route and checkpoint infrastructure in Gaza, and coordinating the necessary infrastructure for land, sea, and air exits to destination countries," the ministry clarified.PALESTINIANS MAKE their way between southern and northern Gaza on Sunday after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)Israel Katz statementDefense Minister Israel Katz stated, "We are determined to realize the vision of US President Donald Trump to enable the voluntary emigration of Gaza residents who wish to relocate to various parts of the world."Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
Blitstein holds a BA in economics, political science, and sociology from Bar-Ilan University, a second BA in law from Ono Academic College, and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. He is also a licensed attorney. The directorate, which was established a week ago, will operate under the authority of the defense minister and is authorized to coordinate with international organizations and other relevant bodies, as well as all relevant government ministries.The directorate's task is to prepare for, and facilitate the safe and supervised "voluntary emigration of Gaza residents to third countries, including securing their transit, establishing a designated pedestrian route and checkpoint infrastructure in Gaza, and coordinating the necessary infrastructure for land, sea, and air exits to destination countries," the ministry clarified.PALESTINIANS MAKE their way between southern and northern Gaza on Sunday after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)Israel Katz statementDefense Minister Israel Katz stated, "We are determined to realize the vision of US President Donald Trump to enable the voluntary emigration of Gaza residents who wish to relocate to various parts of the world."Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
The directorate, which was established a week ago, will operate under the authority of the defense minister and is authorized to coordinate with international organizations and other relevant bodies, as well as all relevant government ministries.The directorate's task is to prepare for, and facilitate the safe and supervised "voluntary emigration of Gaza residents to third countries, including securing their transit, establishing a designated pedestrian route and checkpoint infrastructure in Gaza, and coordinating the necessary infrastructure for land, sea, and air exits to destination countries," the ministry clarified.PALESTINIANS MAKE their way between southern and northern Gaza on Sunday after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)Israel Katz statementDefense Minister Israel Katz stated, "We are determined to realize the vision of US President Donald Trump to enable the voluntary emigration of Gaza residents who wish to relocate to various parts of the world."Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
The directorate's task is to prepare for, and facilitate the safe and supervised "voluntary emigration of Gaza residents to third countries, including securing their transit, establishing a designated pedestrian route and checkpoint infrastructure in Gaza, and coordinating the necessary infrastructure for land, sea, and air exits to destination countries," the ministry clarified.PALESTINIANS MAKE their way between southern and northern Gaza on Sunday after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters)Israel Katz statementDefense Minister Israel Katz stated, "We are determined to realize the vision of US President Donald Trump to enable the voluntary emigration of Gaza residents who wish to relocate to various parts of the world."Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
Defense Minister Israel Katz stated, "We are determined to realize the vision of US President Donald Trump to enable the voluntary emigration of Gaza residents who wish to relocate to various parts of the world."Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
"Our assessments indicate that at least 40% of Gaza's population wants to emigrate," Katz added. "The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
"The appointment of Kobi Blitstein as head of the directorate will provide organizational momentum for all necessary actions, alongside significant diplomatic efforts to identify destination countries—already underway with the US administration and directly led by a team under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Katz expanded.
A New York Times investigation has found that the administration of former US President Joe Biden provided Ukraine with support that went far beyond arms shipments – extending to daily battlefield coordination, intelligence sharing, and joint strategy planning that were indispensable in Kiev's fight against Russia.
The report, which was prepared based on more than 300 interviews with Ukrainian and Western government and military officials, takes a deep dive into the cooperation between Washington and Kiev from the early days of the conflict through late 2024.
Following the outbreak of the hostilities in February 2022, the US and Ukraine gradually moved towards an “extraordinary partnership of intelligence, strategy, planning and technology” that became Kiev's “secret weapon” in fighting Russia, the investigation said.
The outlet noted that Washington's campaign to support Ukraine reached such a scale that it became “a rematch in a long history of US-Russia proxy wars – Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Syria three decades later.”
The US Army garrison in Wiesbaden, Germany, became the nerve center of the cooperation, according to the report. American and Ukrainian officers worked jointly each day to select Russian targets – although they avoided using the phrase, using instead the euphemism “points of interest” out of fear that the phrase could be deemed too provocative. Intelligence flowed from satellite imagery and intercepted communications directly into Ukrainian targeting decisions.
Since mid-2022, Ukraine heavily relied on US data to attack Russian command and control centers and other high-value targets. Targeting sheets contained dozens of objectives listed in order of priority, the NYT said.
Some of the massive strikes made using Western-supplied long-range missiles were aimed at targets in Crimea, including Russian warships. Some of the strikes have resulted in civilian casualties.
One unnamed European official told the paper that he was shocked by the extent of the involvement. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he was quoted as saying.
While early into the conflict the Biden administration promised that the US would not “put boots on the ground” in Ukraine, the cooperation in Wiesbaden ended up leading to an easing of this prohibition, the report claims.
Under Biden, the US “authorized clandestine operations,” and “American military advisers were dispatched to Kiev and later allowed to travel closer to the fighting,” NYT said, estimating their number in the dozens.
As the conflict progressed, the Biden administration gradually relaxed the self-imposed restrictions on supplying Kiev with arms, particularly long-range missiles. In 2024, the US extended its permissions to allow Ukraine to carry out limited long-range strikes using American-supplied weapons into internationally recognized Russian territory while providing Kiev with the relevant targeting data.
While cooperation with the US provided Ukraine with invaluable data and resources to fight Russia, the sides at times had major disagreements over strategy and objectives, the NYT noted.
“Where the Americans focused on measured, achievable objectives, they saw the Ukrainians as constantly grasping for the big win, the bright, shining prize,” the report said.
The contradictions became particularly apparent during Ukraine's botched counteroffensive in the southern sector of the front in the summer of 2023. The Ukrainian leadership was split between competing objectives – pursuing an assault toward Melitopol, and prioritizing the area of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).
While describing the cooperation as a “secret weapon” in Kiev's arsenal, the NYT noted that the arrangement now “teeters on a knife edge” as US President Donald Trump is pushing for talks with Russia and seeking to end the conflict.
“For the Ukrainians, the auguries are not encouraging… the American president has baselessly blamed the Ukrainians for starting the war, pressured them to forfeit much of their mineral wealth and asked the Ukrainians to agree to a ceasefire without a promise of concrete American security guarantees,” the outlet summarized, adding that Trump has already started to wind down some elements of the partnership.
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An earthquake of magnitude 7.1 hit the Tonga Islands on Sunday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The shallow quake hit 90 kilometres (56 miles) southeast of the village of Pangai, with warnings also extending to the island nation of Niue.
The US Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert, cautioning that "tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meters above the tide level are possible for some coasts of Niue... and Tonga.
It had earlier warned that "hazardous tsunami waves from this earthquake are possible within 300 kilometres of the epicentre along the coasts of Tonga".
Authorities in Tonga issued a warning to residents to stay away from beaches and shorelines. "People living in the low-lying coastal areas, please move to higher grounds or further inland," the Tonga National Disaster Risk Management Office wrote on Facebook.
As of now, there are no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
Tonga is a Polynesian kingdom in the South Pacific, consisting of over 170 islands that boast white sandy beaches, coral reefs, and dense tropical rainforests. It is more than 3,500 kilometers (2,000 miles) off of Australia's east coast.
Earthquakes are common in Tonga, a low-lying archipelago home to around 100,000 people that straddles the seismic Ring of Fire-- an arc of intense tectonic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
This powerful earthquake follows a recent series of seismic activities in the region, highlighting the ongoing geological volatility of the South Pacific area. On Friday, a 7.7 magnitude quake hit Myanmar midday with an epicenter near Mandalay, bringing down scores of buildings and damaging other infrastructure like the city's airport.
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ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, was down for several users on Sunday with its servers overwhelmed by a surge in demand for its new Studio Ghibli-style image generation feature.
However, the developer soon updated saying all impacted services have been "fully recovered".
Reports of the outage began surfacing Saturday evening, leaving several users unable to access the service for a considerable period, but escalated on Sunday around 4 pm, with users flocking to social media to express their frustration.
"We are sorry, an error occurred. Please retry after a few minutes.
"It seems this application has become very popular, and its available rate limit has been reached. Please retry after a few minutes," users saw this popup when trying to access the platform.
OpenAI acknowledged the server crash, and later updated that services have been restored. It showed that the ChatGPT web was the most affected.
"We have identified that users are experiencing elevated errors for the impacted services. We are working on implementing a mitigation," OpenAI acknowledged.
Downdetector, a website that monitors online service disruptions, showed a massive spike in reported problems with OpenAI, starting around 4.19 pm on Sunday, with 219 reports.
"All impacted services have now fully recovered. The detailed Root Cause Analysis (RCA) will be published in the next 5 business days," OpenAI said in an update.
The server overload of ChatGPT was significantly influenced by the release of a new feature that allowed users to generate images in the style of Studio Ghibli, a renowned Japanese animation studio.
This feature quickly gained immense popularity, prompting a surge in user activity as people flocked to experiment with the tool.
"can yall please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X.
The outage affected users globally, preventing them from accessing ChatGPT for various tasks, ranging from content creation to coding assistance.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke in response to a letter sent to the country's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei by US President Donald Trump earlier this month.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic is ruling out direct negotiations with the US on its nuclear programme.
"We don't avoid talks," Pezeshkian said in televised remarks during a cabinet meeting. "It's the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far. They must prove that they can build trust.”
Pezeshkian was speaking in response to a letter sent by US President Donald Trump to Tehran on 12 March, the exact contents of which were not revealed.
Iran's reply, which was delivered to the US through the sultanate of Oman, did however leave the door open for potential indirect negotiations with Washington.
The White House did not offer an immediate response to the Iranian president's remarks, but in an interview with NBC that aired on the same day but was recorded just prior to Tehran's comments, Trump said "If they don't make a deal, there will be bombing and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before."
Earlier this month, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed the prospect of direct negotiations, noting that so long as Washington maintains its heavy sanctions on Tehran, no nuclear negotiations or cooperation can take place.
“We will not enter any direct negotiations with the US so long as they continue their maximum pressure policy and their threats,” said the Iranian FM.
The Trump administration has reimposed sanctions against Iran – including on the country's oil sector – as part of his maximum pressure policy designed to cripple the Iranian economy and force the government into diplomatic submission.
In a speech in August, Supreme Leader Khamenei opened the door to talks with the US, saying there is “no harm in engaging with the enemy”. However, more recently, he's backtracked stating that negotiations with Washington are “not intelligent, wise or honourable”, after Trump floated the prospect of nuclear talks.
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The hit Netflix series Adolescence has fueled discussion about banning social media and smartphones for children. But experts warn a ban won't work.
"The hatred of women is everywhere and dictates the way men behave online," one young Gen Z person said in a recent poll when asked about misogyny on social media, while a young man said, "it isn't that deep. It's all a laugh".
According to the Amnesty International survey released this week, 73 per cent of Gen Z social media users (those aged 13-28) in the UK have witnessed misogynistic content online, with half encountering it every week.
The poll comes as social media has been placed under an even brighter spotlight following the release of the Netflix drama Adolescence, which follows the fictional story of the social media-fuelled murder of a schoolgirl by a 13-year-old boy.
The show's co-creator Jack Thorne has called on the UK government to ban smartphones for those under 16, following a similar move made by Australia to ban social media for the same age range.
However, experts warn that a ban does not get to the root of the problem.
There is no current data to suggest that banning social media for under 16s works.
The most recent study published in Lancet Regional Health Europe - and the first of its kind - looked at the impact of smartphone bans in schools across England and found that they made no difference to mental well-being, sleep, or educational outcomes.
The study was limited in that it only evaluated bans during school hours and not an outright prohibition, as some countries have suggested.
However, restricting smartphone use until the age of 16 may not work either as it may be too late for children to be educated about the harms of social media.
"Currently, it does look like the age of 16 is the age at which a child is allowed full access to social media. So you've got to think, what happens when a child is 15 years and 364 days old," said Drew Benvie, the founder of the social media campaign group Raise, which works with children to educate them about the harms of social media.
Another issue, he told Euronews Next, is that "children always find a way" to get around bans and parental restrictions.
"I think banning social media for an age group has inherent risks. It's going to be incredibly difficult to enforce, and even if it's possible, users will find a way to bypass it," he said, pointing out that children are using VPNs to get around the TikTok ban in the United States.
He argued that bans would likely see messaging apps replacing social media and that there is a potential risk for them to be more harmful because the content “goes dark and can't be seen by others," such as parents.
The most prolific misogynistic influencer is Andrew Tate, who blends get-rich-quick tips with misogyny, saying that women belong at home and that rape victims must "bear responsibility for their attacks".
In the last month, 57 per cent of Gen Z men in the UK reported that they'd seen content from Elon Musk, US President Donald Trump (55 per cent), and Andrew Tate (41 per cent), according to the Amnesty International report.
"The influence of toxic masculinity on young boys and how it's affecting their behaviour towards young girls. I think that does scare me the most about all of this," said Benvie, who added that education is just part of the solution.
For their part, social media companies have taken some steps to make their platforms safer for children.
TikTok introduced a new mindfulness tool that automatically turns on for teenagers under 16 after 10 pm and will interrupt the "For You" feed with a full-screen takeover, play calming music, and activate blue light.
It also has new controls that allow parents to block teenagers from TikTok during specific times.
Other platforms allow parents to block their children's social media use in the evening, and Meta has also introduced teen accounts for Instagram that give parents greater control.
The mindfulness tool by TikTok "can help a little bit, but really only a little bit. If teens use it maybe they will turn off for a bit and get a better night's sleep, or they will use it when they see something," said Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology, department of media and communications at the London School of Economics.
"The very fact of providing it will communicate something about the value of being more mindful and being more, as psychologists would say, kind of self-regulating, taking a bit more control of their own engagement instead of just feeling taken over by the app," she told Euronews Next.
As for parental controls, she said that she has researched them and found that the controls should be reached through a consensus in the family, not just imposed by the parent.
"Anything imposed high-handed by the parent tends to get rejected or resented by the child, or they find a workaround," Livingstone said, adding that replacing the word control would also be a good move so that children feel less dictated to.
Although these measures give parents greater control, social media platforms can amplify misogynistic content. The longer the user stays on a video and the more popular it becomes, the more similar types of videos are promoted by the algorithm.
A study last year found that there was a four-fold increase in the level of misogynistic content, which TikTok suggested when it was monitored by researchers over five days.
The algorithm showed more extreme videos, which, for the most part, focused on anger and blame directed at women.
The study by University College London and the University of Kent in the UK focused solely on TikTok, but the researchers said the findings were likely similar to what other social media platforms offer.
The researchers also said that an total restriction of phones or social media was "likely to be ineffective," and instead called for a “healthy digital diet” and for the tech companies to look into their algorithms.
The other way social media companies can act is to be quicker at removing content when it is reported as offensive, said Livingstone.
"Children say to me a lot that they want a much better way of reporting and taking down the content," said Livingstone.
"I've had children say we report things such as beheadings and it took TikTok two hours to take it down," she said, adding that two hours is fast for a social media platform, but in that period, it has already been shared on other platforms and been screenshot many times.
When it comes to misogyny, "it needs to be caught much faster than it currently is," said Benvie.
Illegal content on social media is classified, for instance as child sexual exploitation or graphic content, but misogyny is easy to go undetected for a long period.
"It could be dressed up as attractive to impressionable minds, and it needs to be detected faster. It needs to be removed faster," said Benvie.
"And those pushing it need to face sanctions as well as the social networks. And that's only part of the solution," he added.
While controversial influencer Tate has been banned from Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, his content continued to be posted on these platforms by others for quite some time.
Another point Benvie makes is that misogynistic posts from profiles that are not as known as Tate may go undetected for a while, as children will not bring up these posts or profiles with their parents or teachers.
"That's when it will make an impact, and it will affect a child in quite a harmful way. I think if it's [misogyny] better understood, it can be more quickly dealt with as an issue," he said.
Benvie argues this is where education needs to come in, which would talk to children about the issues of misogyny, teach digital literacy, and talk about disinformation and fake news.
He said that parents can also help with education and that the best way to do so is for parents to use the apps themselves to understand them and talk to their children about worrisome content they may have seen, as children will not bring up the content themselves.
However, Benvie said that education alone cannot fill the gap and that action needs to be taken by regulators and social media companies.
Regulation, education, and enforcement of social media safety needs to happen faster, and the social networks know they need to change or else they face a ban, he said.
"It's a shame that facing a ban is bringing about such quick action. But at least we're going in the right direction, because I don't think outright bans are practicable and therefore they won't work," he said.
"They will help, but they're not the solution because at some point a child comes online and we need to equip them with the skills for life online, not prevent them from accessing the reality of life".
Four more people have been rescued from the rubble in Myanmar nearly 60 hours after a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck, killing 1,700 people
Hundreds of people remain missing, with search efforts continuing in both Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand - where the death toll has risen to 18
In Bangkok, rescuers are working to locate 76 missing workers stuck under a collapsed 30-floor unfinished high-rise
Families are anxiously waiting for updates - one woman tells the BBC she will wait "for as long as it takes"
In Myanmar, which has been torn apart by conflict, the military is still carrying out air strikes, despite condemnation from the United Nations, writes BBC's Rebecca Henschke
This video can not be played
Myanmar earthquake: Woman pulled alive from debris
Edited by Rorey Bosotti, with Tessa Wong in Bangkok and BBC Burmese reporting from Yangon
Search efforts are still under way, 55 hours after a deadly earthquake hit Myanmar.
Here we're seeing a video showing rescuers pulling a woman out alive from the rubble.
This video can not be played
Myanmar earthquake: Woman pulled alive from debris
We've just had an update from Myanmar's fire services department, saying 20 people have been rescued in Shan state, which borders the badly affected regions of Mandalay and Sagaing.
Officials say nine bodies have also been recovered in the northern state, and search and rescue efforts are still under way.
As we've just reported, countries around the world have sent teams to Myanmar to help with search and rescue operations.
Here are a few pictures showing some of those teams on the ground in the quake-hit country.
Chinese rescue workers use equipment to assist with search efforts near a temple in Mandalay
A plane carrying Russian rescue workers lands in Myanmar's capital Nay Pyi Taw
The US has also sent a team of rescue workers to help the quake-hit country
Matt SpiveyLive editor
It's been 55 hours since a deadly earthquake struck Myanmar, with tremors felt in neighbouring countries, resulting in the deaths of about 1,700 people.
On Sunday, another quake hit Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, as rescue teams in Thailand picked up signs of life under collapsed buildings.
International aid is pouring in thick and fast. China, India and Hong Kong have sent rescue teams to Myanmar to support efforts to find survivors.
There have been glimmers of hope within the search efforts. In Mandalay, the local fire authority says 29 people have been pulled from the rubble of a high-rise block. On Saturday, a 30-year-old woman was rescued after being trapped for about 30 hours.
In Bangkok, at the site of a collapsed skyscraper, the BBC has spoken to families waiting desperately for news.
Kannika is one of them. Her husband is missing. She says she'll wait “for as long as it takes”, but finds it hard to explain to her son why his dad hasn't called.
Our colleagues across the region are constantly sharing updates. Stay with us for the latest.
Since the earthquake, several countries have sent search and rescue teams to Myanmar to help. Here's a look at some of them:
Have you been affected by the earthquake in Myanmar? Did you feel the tremors in Thailand or China?
If it's safe to do so, please get in touch with us in the following ways:
Shaimaa KhalilReporting from Bangkok
Two of Pranit Rampuey's colleagues are still missing under the rubble. I saw her sitting at the edge of the fenced area across from the collapse site.
She tells me she and her colleagues normally work on a different site, but they split up that day and her colleagues came here on the day of the earthquake to fill some team gaps.
“They were like family” she tells me, sobbing.
“I feel guilty”, she adds, explaining they came to the now collapsed site and she didn't.
Her two colleagues were related – an uncle and his nephew. “He was a good boy.” She tells me of the young man. He was 27.
“I've been here all day and I've heard nothing so far. I'm still hoping they find them alive,” she says.
Nick MarshReporting from Bangkok
Kannika has been waiting here, patiently, since the early hours of Saturday morning.
Her husband, Yothin, was working as the chief electrician on the 24th floor of the unfinished tower when it collapsed. She and Yothin - who are both in their mid-30s - are from a village in northern Thailand.
Yothin came to Bangkok to work on the construction site and send the money back to his family. Kannika has travelled more than 300km in the aftermath of the earthquake to wait for news about her missing husband.
He's one of thousands of workers in Thailand who migrate to the capital to try to build a better future for their family.
"I will stay here for as long as it takes," she tells us, wiping tears from her eyes. Their two children, aged five and 12, are being looked after by her sister back home.
Her youngest child keeps asking: "Why hasn't dad called, why hasn't dad called?"
"He is a very good man and a very good father. We have been together many years. I pray that they find him safe."
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has given an update on the number of people killed in Thailand after the earthquake.
City officials say 18 people are confirmed dead, with 11 killed as a result of the collapsed skyscraper – 10 at the scene and one who died after being taken to hospital.
Thirty-three people are known to have been injured, and authorities say 78 are still missing.
Our colleagues have just finished translating comments from the news conference with Thailand's deputy prime minister.
Anutin Charnirakul says rescue teams have been using scanners to detect signs of life under the rubble, but the signals they've picked up are weak.
"Maybe they don't have energy to move their bodies or they take a light breath," he says.
He adds that searching for survivors has been tough because of large objects that can't be moved, but engineers are assessing the situation and rescuers are working on solutions.
Since the earthquake, there have been concerns about building safety rules in Bangkok. Charnirakul says there are thousands of buildings in the capital and most are "fine" after the quake.
"We cannot use this building as [an] example and think that we have no standard," he comments.
Thailand's deputy prime minister has just spoken to the media at the site of the collapsed high-rise in Bangkok.
Asked why the skyscraper – which was still under construction – came down, Anutin Charnvirakul says: “Something might have gone wrong.”
“I've just appointed the investigation committee to search for the reasons why it collapsed. They will report back within seven days,” he says.
He adds the investigation will look into the “designer, project controller and the builder”, saying “we will definitely find the true reasons as to why this building has collapsed”.
That was from the English part of Charnvirakul's news conference – most of it was in Thai. Our colleagues are translating the rest now and we'll bring you those details shortly.
Tessa WongReporting from Bangkok
Now let's move our focus from Myanmar back to Thailand, where the earthquake has had a devastating impact.
The country's industry minister Akanat Promphan has addressed the media at the site of the Bangkok building collapse.
He says they found "anomalies" in the steel at the site and they have collected samples for testing.
His comments may be the closest we have heard so far from government officials regarding the possible reasons why the building could not withstand the quake.
While he did not explicitly say that these anomalies could be the reason, he did say that if the results of their investigation show that the steel used did not meet industry standards, his ministry will take legal action against those involved in the construction.
The building was constructed by a joint venture between Italian-Thai Development and the Thai branch of China Railway Number 10 Engineering, according to local media reports.
As we mentioned, the military junta has reportedly launched air strikes just after Friday's earthquake.
But who are they?
Here's a quick explainer to help refresh your knowledge on Myanmar.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, gained independence from Britain in 1948, but its history since then has been marked by unrest and conflict.
Power: The military seized power in 2021, ten years after agreeing to hand over control to a civilian government. Since then, the junta has cracked down hard on dissent, executing democracy activists and jailing journalists.
Capital: Nay Pyi Taw is its capital, while the largest city is Yangon, a commercial hub and former capital.
Population: 57.2 million.
Media: The 2021 coup "shattered the media landscape" and the junta, which "tolerates no alternative to its narrative", quickly banned critical outlets, according to Reporters Without Borders.
A UN official has told the BBC World Service they've had reports that Myanmar's military junta launched air strikes less than an hour after Friday's earthquake.
The military took control in a 2021 coup, and the country's been in civil war ever since.
James Rodehaver, who leads the Myanmar team at the UN human rights office, says the military "has long been the primary limiter of humanitarian aid and access" in the country.
He says: "According to reports that we're receiving on the ground, in under an hour after the earthquake on Friday the military was launching air strikes.
"That was its focus. It was launching air strikes against its own people, including in areas impacted by the earthquake.
"Almost as if they wanted to target the people responding to the people trapped under the rubble."
He says the attacks, while also asking for international aid, are "part of their bait-and-switch tactic... employed for years".
Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing (C) arrives to meet earthquake survivors gathered in the compound of a hospital in Naypyidaw on 28 March
An elderly woman has been pulled from the rubble after being trapped for more than 30 hours in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw.
Footage shows her being carried on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, surrounded by emergency workers.
You can watch the clip below.
This video can not be played
Rescue teams in Myanmar are still searching for people trapped under collapsed buildings, including hotels, schools, mosques, monasteries and homes.
According to updates from the country's fire services department, dozens of survivors have been found and many bodies recovered across several regions, including Mandalay and Sagaing, near the epicentre of Friday's earthquake.
In Sagaing City, 36 people have been rescued and 88 bodies recovered.
Officials say 161 people have died in Mandalay due to collapsed buildings in the Pyaw Bwe township, south of the city. 13 monks have been pulled from the rubble of the U Hla Thein Temple, where 58 people have been rescued so far. Up to 200 monks are thought to be trapped inside.
Also in Mandalay, as we mentioned earlier, 29 people have been rescued and nine bodies recovered from the well-known Sky Villa complex.
Back in Myanmar, rescue efforts are also continuing today in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city and the one closest to the epicentre.
These pictures were taken in the city earlier today.
More international aid is arriving in Myanmar, two days after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake devastated large parts of the country.
Neighbouring Thailand is stepping up efforts to rescue people trapped in a collapsed building in the capital.
From Bangkok, BBC correspondent Arunoday Mukharji brings us the latest from the scene.
This video can not be played
Shaimaa KhalilReporting from Bangkok
A man looks on as rescuers work at the site of the collapsed building
We're being moved further away from the edge of the collapse site. Families who were perched on the fence have been told to move away.
Heavy machinery is getting much closer to where we're standing.
We can feel the dust on our faces, we can taste it. We were told by an official that they are now intensifying their efforts.
From our vantage point, you can see the scale of the damage - the rubble and all the entangled iron.
The heavy machinery is moving around and it looks like they're now digging around the debris.
One official told us they are hoping they will pull out more bodies today.
Tessa WongReporting from Bangkok
In the last few minutes Thai authorities have updated a whiteboard by the main gate to the collapsed building site in Bangkok, with the latest figures.
It states there are 11 dead so far, of which eight are men and three are women. Another nine have been found injured.
Scores of people are still missing.
Earlier, we reported that 12 people had died at the scene. But that's different from what I'm seeing now on the whiteboard. The situation is still changing and the numbers keep being updated.
Separately we have just heard that the body of a man was pulled out today, and rescuers are working to rescue a woman who is trapped under the rubble.
Stay with us as we bring you more updates.
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Foreign Rescuers Join Search For Survivors. BBC News. VideoForeign Rescuers Join Search For Survivors
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A 5.1-magnitude earthquake hit near Myanmar's second-largest city on Sunday, the latest in a string of aftershocks following Friday's devastating temblor.
People in the streets of Mandalay screamed as the aftershock – which was recorded by the United States Geological Survey – hit.
Emergency rescue teams have started trickling into the area of the country hardest hit by Friday's massive quake that killed more than 1,600 people.
Their efforts have been hindered by buckled roads, downed bridges, poor communications and the challenges of operating in a country in the midst of a civil war.
The 7.7-magnitude quake hit at midday on Friday with an epicentre near Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, bringing down scores of buildings and damaging other infrastructure like the city's airport.
Many of Mandalay's 1.5 million people spent the night sleeping on the streets, either left homeless by the quake, which also shook neighbouring Thailand and killed at least 17 people there, or worried that the continuing aftershocks might cause structures left unstable to collapse.
So far, 1,644 people have been reported killed in Myanmar and 3,408 missing, but many areas have not yet been reached, and many rescue efforts so far have been undertaken by people working by hand to try and clear rubble, said Cara Bragg, the Yangon-based manager of Catholic Relief Services in Myanmar.
“It's mainly been local volunteers, local people who are just trying to find their loved ones,” Ms Bragg said after being briefed by her colleague in Mandalay.
The organisation was sending a team by road on Sunday to assess the most pressing needs so that it could target its own response.
With the Mandalay airport damaged and the control tower toppled in the capital Yangon's Naypitaw airport, all commercial flights into the cities have been shut down.
Still, two Indian C-17 military transport aircraft were able to land late on Saturday at Naypitaw with a field hospital unit and some 120 personnel who were then to travel north to Mandalay to establish a 60-bed emergency treatment centre, according to the country's foreign ministry.
Other Indian supplies were flown into Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, which has been the hub of other foreign relief efforts.
On Sunday, a convoy of 17 Chinese cargo trucks carrying critical shelter and medical supplies was expected to reach Mandalay after making the arduous 400-mile journey by road from Yangon.
An initial report on earthquake relief efforts issued on Saturday by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted the severe damage or destruction of many health facilities, and warned a “severe shortage of medical supplies is hampering response efforts, including trauma kits, blood bags, anaesthetics, assistive devices, essential medicines, and tents for health workers”.
China said it has sent more than 135 rescue personnel and experts along with supplies like medical kits and generators, and pledged around 13.8 million US dollars (£10.65 million) in emergency aid.
Russia's emergencies ministry said it had flown in 120 rescuers and supplies to Yangon, and the country's health ministry said Moscow had sent a medical team to Myanmar.
Rescue efforts are complicated by the bloody civil war roiling much of the country, including in quake-affected areas.
In 2001, the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking what has since turned into significant armed resistance.
Government forces have lost control of much of Myanmar and many places are dangerous or impossible for aid groups to reach.
More than three million people have been displaced by the fighting and nearly 20 million are in need, according to the United Nations.
The government military has been fighting long-established militias and newly-formed pro-democracy People's Defence Forces (PDF), and has heavily restricted much-needed aid efforts to the large population already displaced by war even before the earthquake.
On Saturday, Myanmar's opposition shadow National Unity Government, to which the PDF militias are loyal, announced a unilateral partial ceasefire to facilitate earthquake relief efforts.
The military did not immediately comment on the announcement and it continued air strikes even after the earthquake.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance, a group of three of Myanmar's most powerful and well-armed militias that launched a combined offensive in October 2023 that broke a strategic stalemate with the military regime, did not mention a ceasefire in a statement Saturday, but said it was ready to help.
At least 144 people were killed and more than 730 injured after a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the city of Mandalay, according to the head of Myanmar's military government, who warned that casualties are likely to rise.
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1,007 people have been found dead following the Myanmar earthquake on Friday, March 28
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An armed resistance group in Myanmar has accused the ruling military government of continuing to carry out airstrikes on "civilian areas" in the wake of the huge earthquake in the country.
Myanmar continues to be hit by a string of aftershocks, the latest being a 5.1-magnitude earthquake that struck on Sunday morning. This follows a 7.7-magnitude quake that hit on Friday leaving at least 1,644 people dead.View on euronews
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Police estimate around £30,000 damage has been caused by suspected thefts of stones from the walls along the road between Rivington and Anglezarke.
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Trump wants Greenland, Greenland doesn't want Trump
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The Danish foreign minister on Saturday scolded the Trump administration for its “tone” in criticizing Denmark and Greenland, saying his country is already investing more into Arctic security and remains open to more cooperation with the United States.
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made the remarks in a video posted to social media after US Vice President JD Vance's visit to the strategic island.
“Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course we are open to criticism,” Rasmussen said speaking in English. “But let me be completely honest: we do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.”
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Vance on Friday said Denmark had “underinvested” in Greenland's security and demanded that Denmark change its approach as President Donald Trump pushes to take over the Danish territory.
Vance visited US troops on Pituffik Space Base on mineral-rich Greenland alongside his wife and other senior US officials for a trip that was ultimately scaled back after an uproar among Greenlanders and Danes who were not consulted about the original itinerary.
“Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance said Friday. “You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.”
Vance said the US had “no option” but to take a significant position to ensure the security of Greenland as he encouraged a push in Greenland for independence from Denmark.
“I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States,” Vance said. “We could make them much more secure. We could do a lot more protection. And I think they'd fare a lot better economically as well.”
The reaction by members of Greenland's parliament and residents has rendered that unlikely, with anger erupting over the Trump administration's attempts to annex the vast Arctic island. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pushed back on Vance's claim that Denmark isn't doing enough for defense in the Arctic, calling her country “a good and strong ally.”
And Greenlandic lawmakers on Thursday agreed to form a new government, banding together to resist Trump's overtures. Four of the five parties elected to Greenland's parliament earlier this month have agreed to form a coalition that will have 23 of 31 seats in the legislature.
Løkke Rasmussen, in his video, reminded viewers of the 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island, he said, to the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with some 200 soldiers today.
The 1951 agreement “offers ample opportunity for the United States to have a much stronger military presence in Greenland,” the foreign minister said. “If that is what you wish, then let us discuss it.”
Løkke Rasmussen added that Denmark had increased its own investment into Arctic defense. In January, Denmark announced 14.6 billion Danish kroner ($2.1 billion) in financial commitments for Arctic security covering three new naval vessels, long-range drones and satellites.
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For those who keep a close eye on their investments and trade daily, it's possible your emotions are preventing you from seeing more consistent and lucrative returns.
Wave HQ CFO Michaella Gallina detailed how investor psychology — or the emotions, biases, and decision-making patterns that influence how people invest — plays an important role in a person's portfolio.
The three biases she particularly pays close attention to are loss aversion, recency bias, and confirmation bias.
“I think loss aversion is fascinating because it's essentially the concept that we feel losses as an investor at two times the rate of the emotion that we feel joy when it comes to gains,” Gallina said on a March 4 Stocks in Translation podcast. “I think just being aware of these cognitive behaviors is the first step. Understanding that you can make emotional decisions and it can hurt you versus staying the course over the long term ... is always the first step.”
Gallina noted that loss aversion is the most damaging bias for many investors' portfolios, resulting in a “much more lasting effect” than some of the other biases that affect trading decisions.
She pointed to a 2024 JPMorgan survey that found 40% of retail investors tended to sell at market lows.
“So they're feeling those losses even more,” she said. “And then the emotional toll on top of that is even greater. So these emotional swings can cause really terrible decision making.”
It's easy for an investor to look at the short-term trends in the markets and make knee-jerk decisions in reaction to these cycles. Gallina argued that sticking to your investments, even through downturns, can actually net you larger and more consistent returns.
Read more: What is passive income, and how do I generate it through investing?
That said, Gallina noted that biases can even influence passive strategies. She explained that if you're following the markets, you might be hearing in the news that you should rely on diversified ETFs. If you decide to sit on the sidelines with a passive strategy, that may also reflect recency bias or confirmation bias, as you may be relying on recent information or not challenging prior beliefs.
“We tend to be more influenced by short-term news and headlines than we are long-term trends,” Gallina said. “And so as the market evolves, I could see traders who might think of passive strategy right now as the right thing over time may think differently — or the same.”
Similar to how many investment firms hire psychologists to help strategists understand the emotional influence of their trading habits, it's important for individual investors to evaluate the information at hand to make better decisions.
“I think data is information, and it's power,” Gallina said. “I think it's good to just understand the data points, be aware knowledge is power, and then use your own intellectual honesty to determine what your risk appetite is, what type of investments you should or shouldn't be making, whether you should even be in individual stocks or things like more passive investing.”
On Yahoo Finance's podcast Stocks in Translation, Yahoo Finance editor Jared Blikre and producer Sydnee Fried cut through the market mayhem, noisy numbers, and hyperbole to bring you essential conversations and insights from across the investing landscape. Find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service.
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares jumped this week after new comments from Trump administration officials and a board shake-up at the companies drew fresh attention to their potential release from government control.
But beyond the stock market, housing experts see plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the end of an arrangement that dates back to the depths of the financial crisis. The biggest one? Privatization will probably send mortgage rates higher.
“We can debate how much of a cost it will be,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. “That's a legitimate debate, but rates are going to go higher.”
The Trump administration is considering sweeping changes to a crucial piece of the US housing ecosystem at a time when affordability is near an all-time low and home sales are mired in a years-long slump. While Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't make mortgages, they play a crucial role in lending by buying up mortgages from banks and other lenders and packaging them into bonds. The system frees up money for more loans.
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Investors' willingness to buy the bonds — mortgage bonds are a more than $10 trillion market — helps keep Fannie and Freddie's borrowing costs, and by association, 30-year mortgage rates, low.
Today, mortgage bonds are seen as a good bet by investors in part because Fannie and Freddie have the government's backing and share its top credit ratings. A major hurdle to privatization is how to preserve at least some of that backing. If investors perceive a private Fannie and Freddie as riskier, the companies will have to pay more to borrow, which would likely mean mortgage borrowers will pay more too.
Read more: What determines mortgage rates? It's complicated.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that plans to release the two companies will hinge on mortgage rates. At around 6.7%, rates today are more than 1.5 percentage points higher than they were at any point during Trump's first term, and they're at similar levels to where they were before Fannie and Freddie entered conservatorship in 2008.
The power of a guarantee
The companies, known as government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), were chartered by the federal government but spent decades as private companies. In fall 2008, they were on the brink of failure when risky mortgages they bought up began going bad en masse. The Bush administration, fearing a complete collapse of the mortgage financing market, placed the two companies under its supervision and spent billions to bail them out.
That takeover is an example of Fannie and Freddie's “implicit guarantee” — the idea that the government wouldn't let such an important financial institution fail, even if it were private and no formal agreement about government support was in place.
When the two companies entered conservatorship, that implicit guarantee became effectively explicit.
The conservatorship arrangement was intended to be temporary. The idea of releasing the companies from government oversight has some bipartisan support, but it never became a reality across multiple presidential administrations because of concerns about mortgage market disruptions.
In the years since the financial crisis, Fannie and Freddie returned to profitability, paid back the government, and developed new methods to shift credit risk away from taxpayers. Meanwhile, the housing market recovered, and homeowner equity sits near record highs.
“Right now, everything seems to be working just fine,” said Eric Chan, a vice president in North American Financial Institution Ratings at DBRS Morningstar, a credit grader. Because Fannie and Freddie back more than half the mortgages in the country, even relatively small changes to their operations could have an outsized effect on the market, he added.
Read more: 6 steps to choosing the right mortgage lender
Most experts agree that Fannie and Freddie would need some sort of government guarantee when they go private to continue without disruption. Even a return to an implicit guarantee would likely raise mortgage rates, said Jim Parrott, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and a former White House economic adviser during the Obama administration.
“The squirrely part about an implicit guarantee is that it's a perception-based phenomenon,” Parrott said. If any major market players, like top mortgage bond investors or ratings agencies, begin to question the government's commitment, it would create a “ripple effect that will flow through the market whether they're right or not,” he added.
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Zandi, of Moody's, estimates that if Fannie and Freddie go private with an implicit guarantee, mortgage rates could rise between 20 and 40 basis points. From current levels, that would mean rates back at or near 7%.
A release with no guarantee whatsoever could send rates 1 to 1.5 percentage points higher. Few experts view that scenario as probable given the destabilizing effects on the housing market.
“Without a government guarantee, the GSEs have nothing,” Mario Ichaso, a mortgage-backed securities trading desk strategist at Wells Fargo, wrote in a note to clients on Monday. “And America would lose one of its primary engines that has generated trillions of wealth for its citizens through homeownership.”
There's one scenario that could result in lower rates: The government could formally back the companies before they're released, giving them an even more explicit level of support than the current system. But that backstop would require an act of Congress, which is politically unlikely.
Any release plan will take time to develop given the complexities and the money involved, said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which has advocated for a conservatorship exit involving an explicit guarantee.
"This is such a big issue," Fratantoni said. "The numbers are so big ... that this is going to take a lot of attention from the Treasury and particularly from the Treasury secretary."
Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance.
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Late last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a settlement with a small mortgage lender based in Chicago, Townstone Financial, fining the company for discriminating against Black homebuyers and discouraging them from applying for loans by bad-mouthing the city's heavily African American South Side on the radio.
Though Townstone was a minor firm, the case was a major court victory for the government, which described it as a blow against “modern-day redlining” — the practice of refusing to lend in minority neighborhoods.
Learn more: What is redlining, and how does it affect Black communities?
In a surprise move this week, however, the CFPB asked a court to undo its settlement and dismiss the case, claiming it had discovered “significant undisclosed problems” with the investigation that led to the suit, which it said had “trampled” on Townstone's First Amendment rights. What's more, the agency asked the judge for permission to return $105,000 that Townstone already paid in penalties.
Under Trump, the CFPB has dropped a slew of lawsuits that it filed late in the Biden administration, including ones against Capital One, the organization that runs Zelle, Rocket Homes, and other major financial institutions.
But its decision in Townstone has dumbfounded former officials and consumer advocates, who struggled to think of any other example of the government attempting to scrap an enforcement case it had already effectively won and offering to refund a penalty.
“I've never seen anything like it,” said Sam Levine, the former head of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission during the Biden administration. Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the progressive activist organization Public Citizen, called the action “both bizarre and appalling.”
Adding to their sense of shock: The CFPB originally filed its case against Townstone in 2020 during Trump's first term under his own handpicked director, Kathy Kraninger.
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Some consumer protection activists said they were concerned about the precedent the CFPB's request might set, since it would likely encourage other companies to try reopening old, settled cases. “I would go to the Trump administration and say, hey, you did this for Townstone Financial, can you do this for our settlement too?” said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.
The CFPB did not return a request for comment.
Illegal redlining or protected speech?
The Townstone case largely focused on comments its executives made on an in-house weekly podcast and AM radio show they used for marketing, “The Townstone Financial Show.” The government argued that it was essentially an extended infomercial, where the firm's owners and employees talked about issues around mortgages and homebuying — and occasionally took shots at Black neighborhoods in Chicago and surrounding Cook County.
In one episode, for instance, Townstone's co-founder and CEO described Friday through Sunday on the South Side as “hoodlum weekend” and said the police were the only ones preventing it from turning into a “war zone.” On a different occasion, a host said that walking through the South Side at 3 a.m. would deliver “the same rush” as skydiving. In others, the host said that people needed to “drive very fast” and not “look at anybody” in the nearby, mostly Black city of Markham and called a Jewel-Osco in downtown Chicago “Jungle Jewel.” They added that the grocery store was a “scary place” because it was packed with “people from all over the world.”
The CFPB argued that Townstone's remarks signaled it wasn't interested in issuing mortgages in Black and other minority neighborhoods, running afoul of regulations under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act that ban lenders from discouraging potential customers from applying based on race, including in their advertising.
A lower court judge initially dismissed the case, finding that those regulations went beyond what Congress had intended when it passed the law. But the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed and let the suit go forward, eventually leading to a settlement and fine. Though Townstone did bring up a defense that its show was protected by the First Amendment, the issue was never actually litigated.
The appeals court win and penalty made “clear that people are protected from illegal redlining even before they submit their application,” then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said last November.
Conservative groups had long seen the case as an injustice, however. In 2023, researchers at the Competitive Enterprise Institute published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing that the CFPB was misusing antidiscrimination laws to essentially censor speech about crime in Chicago, and compared the comments from Townstone's executives to when the city's own mayor recalled having to shield his children “from bullets that fly right outside our front door.”
This January, the group argued in the Washington Examiner that Trump's CFPB should “take the unusual but warranted step of rescinding” the fine that Townstone paid and “perhaps provide compensation to the firm for the disruption of its business.”
The CFPB, which has largely shut down operations under the second Trump administration, now says the suit should never have been brought. On Wednesday, it filed a motion in which it said officials had conducted a review of the suit's history and found that Townstone had been unfairly “targeted” based on “constitutionally protected speech.”
The motion accuses investigators of essentially cherry-picking a handful of comments on the company's show, pointing out that the government used audio analysis software to find 16 minutes of content from more than 78 hours of tape. The CFPB also never found any potential borrowers who actually claimed to have been discouraged from taking a loan, it noted.
In a statement Wednesday, the acting CFPB Director Russ Vought suggested that the agency's reversal was part of the administration's broader effort to undo diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the public and private sector.
“The CFPB abused its power, used radical ‘equity' arguments to tag Townstone as racist with zero evidence, and spent years persecuting and extorting them — all to further the goal of mandating DEI in lending via their regulation by enforcement tactics,” he said.
A powerful message
Progressive consumer advocates told Yahoo Finance that they were fearful the case signaled it would now be open season for lenders who want to discriminate against borrowers. “Dropping this settlement sends a crystal clear message to businesses that discriminatory conduct is somehow now allowed,” said Public Citizen's Gilbert.
It is unclear whether US District Judge Franklin Valderrama, who is overseeing the case, will grant the government's request to roll back its own settlement. If he does, it may set a template for the Trump administration to try to undo other old settlement deals.
John Berlau, the Competitive Enterprise senior fellow who advocated for the case to be reversed, said he thought it was unlikely that Trump would try to upend many old settlements. The Townstone executives were “victims of an egregious, unconstitutional prosecution” that required extraordinary action, he argued.
Commercial advertisements usually receive a lower level of protection under the First Amendment than political speech. But Berlau said that Townstone's program was no different than other podcasts run by business owners aimed at a general audience.
”I think this sends a powerful message to agencies not to weaponize the law against free speech rights,” Berlau said.
Jordan Weissmann is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance.
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Delaware lawmakers this week pushed through controversial changes governing corporate behavior in a scramble to keep more businesses from leaving the state following the dramatic exit of Elon Musk.
Gov. Matthew Meyer signed the SB 21 legislation into law Tuesday and said the changes would maintain Delaware's place as the best place in the world to incorporate a business — "ensuring clarity and predictability, balancing the interests of stockholders and corporate boards."
The revisions came in response to a string of complaints from prominent CEOs, including Tesla (TSLA) CEO Musk, who moved incorporations out of state or threatened to do so. The exits even gained a nickname: "Dexits.”
Musk has already moved the incorporations of Tesla and his rocket-building company, SpaceX (SPAX.PVT), to Texas. Neuralink (NEUR.PVT), Boring, and the social media platform X — three other companies he oversees — have left for Nevada.
Over the past year, Meta (META), Dropbox (DBX), hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, Trade Desk (TTD), Fidelity National Financial (FNF), and Sonoma Pharmaceuticals (SNOA) have all floated plans to move their incorporations.
The talk of high-profile departures is roiling a state that, for roughly the past century, has been the dominant place to incorporate because of its so-called corporate-friendly laws, specialized business courts, and ease of filing company documents.
The state touts that it is home to more than two-thirds of all Fortune 500 companies. In 2023, Delaware hit a record 2 million total incorporations but saw a drop in the percentage of Fortune 500 companies registered there to 67.6% from 68.2% in 2022.
The state's newly elected Democratic governor, Meyer, launched a working group to study mounting complaints, and lawmakers rushed to push through a bill that would limit investor lawsuits by allowing corporate boards to further insulate their directors, officers, and controlling shareholders from liability.
Musk decided to leave the state after a controversial decision by a Delaware judge to wipe out his $56 billion performance-based compensation plan. He is now appealing that decision.
The billionaire, along with current and former Tesla directors, argued in a recent appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court that the refusal by Delaware Chancery Court judge Kathaleen McCormick to reinstate Musk's pay contained multiple errors that should lead to the ruling's reversal.
The new law passed this week by the state legislature and signed by the governor extends more leeway to board members in transactions where their interests or relationships raise conflicts of interest.
It also broadens the set of conditions that investors must meet before inspecting company records, making it more difficult for plaintiffs to find evidence supporting a lawsuit.
Semafor reported that the legislation was prompted by warnings from key corporate attorneys that more big-name companies, including Walmart (WMT), might move out of the state.
Critics say the amendments amount to a handout for billionaires because they broaden safe harbor protections for corporate directors. They also object to the legislation being put to a vote without more deliberation.
Columbia Law School professors criticized Delaware lawmakers for pushing what they describe as major overhauls so quickly.
"Ordinarily, reforms of this magnitude pass through the deliberate, consensus-driven process of the Delaware Bar's Corporation Law Council. This time, however, the route appears more compressed," the lawyers said.
Eric Talley, one of the Columbia Law School professors who co-authored the critique, said parts of the new law may be vulnerable to state constitutional challenges.
"I suspect a challenge to be made imminently," Talley said.
He added that the most serious consequence for investors under the new rules is that they have less protection against actions by insiders — officers, directors, and especially large stockholders — that attempt to funnel assets away from outside investors and into the pockets of the insiders.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.
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President Trump is reportedly pulling together a TikTok rescue that may not fully cut ties between the social media app and its Chinese parent company.
But such a deal may survive any legal challenges due to how the US law mandating such a separation was written — and the hold that Trump has over the GOP-controlled Congress.
"If you asked me to sort of predict or bet on the success of a legal challenge, my money would be on all of those challenges failing for lack of standing," said University of Houston Law Center's law professor Nikolas Guggenberger.
Congress last year passed a law requiring a "qualified divestiture" of TikTok, a reference to control of the company and the algorithm that powers the app. Its Chinese parent can retain no more than a 20% stake in the company.
What's important to remember is that the law allows the president to determine whether that “qualified divestiture” threshold has been met — giving Trump some leeway as he tries to pull a deal together before a renewed ban of the app takes effect on April 5.
In the deal currently being negotiated — according to reporting by Reuters and Politico and other media outlets — the biggest non-Chinese investors in ByteDance may increase their existing stakes and acquire the US operations of TikTok as part of a new entity. That would push Chinese ownership below a critical 20% threshold.
TikTok and its CEO, Shou Zi Chew, have repeatedly objected to letting go of the app's proprietary algorithm. The deal being contemplated, according to media reports, would task tech giant Oracle with safeguarding Americans' data on TikTok to ensure it is not available to China.
That may not go far enough to satisfy some who wanted to eliminate all Chinese involvement.
"The law is clear," Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, wrote in the National Review. "Any deal must eliminate Chinese influence and control over the app to safeguard our interests."
TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, operates under Chinese Communist Party law, which requires it to share user data upon request.
US intelligence officials have expressed concern that the CCP could use Americans' data against them and use TikTok's algorithm to gain backdoor access to swaths of information on US citizens.
That is largely the reason former President Joe Biden signed legislation last April requiring TikTok to divest or face a nationwide ban. The US Supreme Court upheld the law against a constitutional challenge from TikTok and TikTok users.
In effect, the statute outlawed app stores — like those run by Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) — and cloud services from offering the app for download unless it is controlled by a country that the US does not consider adversarial.
The law resulted in TikTok's short-lived shutdown on Jan. 20, Trump's first day back in office. That same day, Trump delayed enforcement of the divestment via executive order.
The order, which experts have said is legally dubious, opened a 75-day window for the Trump administration "to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way" for TikTok's US business.
That window expires on April 5. Trump has said he is open to an extension of the 75-day pause if a deal isn't reached by the deadline.
Legal experts say TikTok's rivals, such as Meta (META), are among few parties that could even mount a challenge to any perceived shortcoming of a forthcoming Trump deal.
"It would be hard for someone to challenge," said Alan Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. "But Mark Zuckerberg could argue, 'I'm upset because the government is doing something that's helping one of my rivals, illegally, and that hurts me.'"
But even competitors who could argue that TikTok's continuing presence in the US is undermining their lawful business would find it difficult to establish standing, Guggenberger said.
“That's just very, very, very, unlikely to succeed,” he added.
Members of Congress may have some recourse if they feel the law is not being enforced. They could amend the statute, create a new one that provides a private right of action, or add other pressures that would force TikTok to comply.
“I don't see that playing out politically in any way,” Guggenberger said, noting the hold Trump has on Republicans who control both the House and Senate and the fact that Trump would need to sign off on any new laws.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.
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We recently published a list of Top 10 Stocks to Buy According to SRS Investment Management. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) stands against other top stocks to buy according to SRS Investment Management.
SRS Investment Management is a New York-based investment firm founded in 2006 by Karthik Sarma. The firm focuses on diverse investments across industries, including technology, media, telecommunications, consumer goods, and industrial sectors. It employs a research-driven approach to identify promising opportunities in global markets, leveraging its expertise to navigate complex financial landscapes.
As an investment advisory firm, SRS provides detailed insights into its business practices through its regulatory disclosures, although these are not verified by the SEC or state securities authorities. The firm emphasizes thorough due diligence when evaluating potential investments, gathering information on a company's products, services, and market position. Its analytical approach includes engaging with industry experts, assessing supply and demand dynamics, and constructing financial models to project future performance and returns.
SRS primarily follows a global long/short equity strategy, aiming for high risk-adjusted returns while prioritizing capital preservation. The firm diversifies its investments across multiple industries and regions to mitigate risks. Its investment process involves extensive fundamental research, disciplined portfolio management, and strategic positioning in both long and short positions. This approach enables SRS to capitalize on market inefficiencies and generate sustainable returns.
Additionally, the firm runs a Focused Investment Program, targeting undervalued securities and acquiring significant positions at favorable prices. This strategy relies on active shareholder engagement, where SRS seeks positive responses from company management and stakeholders to influence corporate actions. The effectiveness of this strategy depends on how the market reacts to these initiatives and the willingness of companies to adopt changes proposed by shareholders. Through its meticulous investment approach, SRS aims to drive long-term value creation for its investors.
Karthik Sarma is an Indian billionaire hedge fund manager and the founder of SRS Investment Management, which he launched in 2006 after five years at Tiger Global Management. With a strong background in finance and investment, Sarma has also served as a director on Avis's board since 2020, playing a key role in its strategic decisions. His educational background includes a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and a master's degree from Princeton University. His professional journey began with three years at McKinsey & Co. as a consultant, where he gained experience in business strategy and financial analysis. He later joined Tiger Global Management, where he worked as a Managing Director from 2001 to 2005, honing his expertise in hedge fund management before establishing SRS Investment Management. Sarma's ability to identify and capitalize on investment opportunities has positioned him as a highly influential figure in the hedge fund industry.
As an immigrant who moved to the United States for graduate studies, Sarma has built a reputation as a strategic investor with a disciplined approach to fund management. His experience across consulting, investment management, and corporate governance has contributed to his firm's success. Through SRS, he continues to influence the financial landscape, focusing on long-term value creation for investors while maintaining a strong presence in key industries.
As of its latest filing for the fourth quarter of 2024, SRS Investment Management reported overseeing approximately $7 billion in 13F securities. The firm's investment approach remains highly concentrated, with its top ten holdings accounting for 92.05% of total assets. This level of concentration suggests a high-conviction strategy, where SRS invests heavily in a select group of companies it believes offer strong long-term growth potential.
The stocks discussed below were picked from SRS Investment Management's Q4 2024 13F filings. They are compiled in the ascending order of the hedge fund's stake in them as of December 31, 2024. To assist readers with more context, we have included the hedge fund sentiment regarding each stock using data from 1,009 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
A home theater with family members enjoying streaming content together.
Number of Hedge Fund Holders as of Q4: 144
SRS Investment Management's Equity Stake: $1.8 Billion
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) reported a record-breaking fourth-quarter performance in 2024, with revenue surging 16% to $10.25 billion and earnings per share doubling to $4.27. The company added 18.91 million new subscribers, bringing its total user base to 301.63 million. With projections of a 13% revenue increase in 2025, Netflix is leveraging its strong content library and strategic pricing adjustments to sustain growth. Over the past decade, its revenue has expanded by 609%, and its market capitalization now exceeds $400 billion, making it a compelling long-term investment option.
Investor confidence remains high, as reflected in Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)'s stock price, which jumped 18% following its impressive Q4 results. J.P. Morgan reaffirmed a bullish stance with a $1,150 price target, while Bernstein set an even higher $1,200 target. The company's focus on cost discipline, including a crackdown on password sharing and selective content investments, helped improve operating margins from 21% in 2023 to 27% in 2024. Free cash flow reached $6.9 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow to $8 billion in 2025. Netflix's decision to prioritize regional content and one-off events over costly sports broadcasting rights has further optimized returns on investment.
Despite a temporary market downturn in March 2025 that pushed shares down to $860, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)'s long-term outlook remains strong. The company continues to repurchase stock as a means of returning value to shareholders, even without paying dividends. Analysts highlight the company's massive global subscriber base, disciplined financial management, and strategic content approach as key factors positioning it for sustained success in the competitive streaming industry.
Insider Monkey's database indicated that, out of the 1,009 hedge funds it tracks, 144 hedge funds held stakes in Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) at the end of Q4 2024 with a combined value of nearly $19.61 billion, as opposed to 121 funds in Q3.
Overall, NFLX ranks 1st on our list of top stocks to buy according to SRS Investment Management. While we acknowledge the potential for NFLX as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NFLX but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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Adam Bloodworth
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Erin Doherty rose to fame as the young Princess Anne in The Crown, but this year has found new success working alongside Stephen Graham on two projects, A Thousand Blows and Adolescence. She tells Adam Bloodworth how playing a child psychologist in the latter ‘consumed' her, the type of queer stories she'd like to tell over the coming years and how she's been bingeing The Crown long after she left the Netflix show
Erin Doherty had already captured the zeitgeist. Her performance as Princess Anne in The Crown had such subtle power that it made casting director Nina Gold realise working class people could play aristocrats. Then as crime lord Mary Carr in A Thousand Blows, she was lauded as one of the most versatile actors of her generation. Next came Adolescence, in which Doherty plays a child psychologist interviewing a teenager accused of murder, which blew everything else out of the water.
Doherty leads some of the most harrowing scenes in the mini series, which has garnered the biggest audience for any streaming TV show in the UK in a single week. It's become hard to pop to the shops without people asking “have you seen Adolescence?” – and everyone sounds genuinely unnerved. Asking questions about masculinity and online culture, it follows a 13-year-old boy, Jamie, who's been accused of murder. Shot as live, each episode is filmed in a single take, with actors allowed to improvise, making its form almost as interesting as its content. Owen Cooper, who plays Jamie, has already landed the role of young Heathcliff in a forthcoming film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
Doherty says she was genuinely scared during filming. You can't turn away from her interrogation, which controversially humanises a murder suspect, but also shows the mental health repercussions on the psychologist.
We start by acknowledging that, by anyone's standards, it's been quite the year. “It took a good month to get it out of my system,” says Doherty of Adolescence. “You can't escape what it's doing to you, it kind of gets in your bones. There's no copy and paste formula like, ‘Okay, I'll do this, and then I'll be Erin again.' I was just so consumed and exhausted, just at the level of emotional intensity of this thing.'” Doherty is propelled by the show's themes about online radicalisation of young men. “I think we all have to hold ourselves accountable for trying to break the cycle in some way.”
Talking over Zoom, Doherty wears a luminescent blue jumper and an even brighter smile. Unlike her most famous roles which veer towards austere, she is cheery and incredibly gracious. The first thing she offers is motherly reassurance about the tech issues I've had logging onto our call. “It's so stressful, but you don't need that anymore – it's all gone!” She chats effusively about everything from how she hated school to bingeing The Crown and obsessing over her characters. If a PE teacher were to mark her interview style, they'd commend her for “giving 110 per cent.”
Had it not been for Adolescence, her boxing drama A Thousand Blows, released this February on Disney Plus, would still be brewing in the public consciousness. Doherty's female crime lord was gently terrifying, with some hilarious lines, and that's without mentioning the game-changing representation: bad-ass Victorian female crime lords, based on women who actually existed, aren't your classic prime-time fodder. She spent a year filming that, then went straight into Adolescence, both with Stephen Graham, who invited her into the latter after being impressed by her work on the former: “I didn't even read the script,” she says. “Whatever he does is just full of pure heart and love and care. I just knew that it was gonna be so vital; he doesn't take on projects lightly.”
The show has become the first streaming show ever to top the UK's weekly TV ratings. “With something that is so frightening, it's so easy to avoid it and to just go, ‘What a horrible thing that some people can do, I can't get my head around it.' Whereas this show is going, I understand how frightening a prospect that is, but we have to hold ourselves accountable for shining a light and going, ‘How are these events happening?'” says Doherty.
“Especially with our younger generation, we deserve to humanise how they get there, because otherwise, again, they just become this kind of two dimensional evil ‘other'. And actually, I do believe that everyone is born a good person. I don't think that people are inherently evil. So it's always necessary, it's always worthy of our time to pick at that and go, ‘Oh my God, how did you get there?'”
Chuck in eight West End eight shows a week on top of her promotional schedule for Adolescence (she's currently starring in the play Unicorn) and despite how she clearly loves talking about the show, she admits she's “sooooo readyyyyyy” for a holiday. I suspect her ability to appear affable even when she's exhausted has helped her schmooze numerous big-wigs on her way up.
You wonder how our brightest Hollywood hope would fare on a sun lounger. Doherty admits she obsesses over people to a degree that isn't healthy. “It's my biggest thing that I battle with,” she says. “I think we've all got demons. For me, it manifests as overthinking. I'll get to the end of the day and I'll lie in bed and be like, ‘Oh God, I hope that person didn't take that the wrong way.'” She has to be careful that this approach doesn't wear her down, because she “grew up a people pleaser.” But her ability to over-analyse can yield positive results, working in favour of forthcoming projects. When she researches roles, “I'll dig and dig and dig and really try to understand and pick up why people behave the way they behave. I could linger on a specific interaction for a week.”
I don't need to know what you think about my work. If you want to come up to me and talk about it, great, but I don't need to be a part of that conversation online
Growing up in Crawley, West Sussex, as a young girl Doherty and her older sister would take acting classes at the weekends. She was the shy one, but nevertheless remembers the experience changing her. “Something flipped through art,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don't have to be Erin anymore.' That was my first lasting impression of what acting and being someone else could do, mentally. I can put that anxiety down for a couple of hours and just let go. There's not been anything else that I've found so freeing. It's just in me. I don't know how I would function without this ability to just let go.”
She took a one-year course at the Guildford School of Acting in 2011, not long after leaving high school. Studying acting at the Bristol Old Vic, she graduated in 2015 and was first inspired to tread the boards after watching Mike Bartlett's Earthquakes in London at the National Theatre, a vivid, chaotic interpretative dance number about, amongst other things, climate change.
Call The Midwife and the BBC miniseries of Les Misérables were early roles, but the part that properly propelled her came in 2019 when she was cast as a young Princess Anne in The Crown. Casting director Nina Gold had thought “playing a whole different social class is one of the most difficult things to do convincingly”, but has admitted, “Erin really blew that theory.” She was captivating as the poised young princess, revealing a vividness to the most reluctantly camera-ready of the late Queen's children. She still binges The Crown, and is obsessed with Imelda Staunton. “I got to meet her the other day. We were working on an audio book, and she is everything you want her to be. I absolutely binged the last series and thought it was phenomenal.”
Looking back to where it all began, Doherty reminisces about studying musical theatre at her comprehensive school in Crawley. She still has family there, and pops back regularly, but as a whole she cannot wax lyrical about the institution. “I hated school with a passion,” she says. “But the drama department was so pivotal to me.” She'd love to go back and jump in on some lessons. “I have such admiration for teachers but I could never see myself having the skill and ability.”
If not through teaching, she has always been keen to promote the idea of levelling up. Doherty seems genuinely overwhelmed when I read the Nina Gold quote to her. “For her to say something like that, I don't really know how to deal with that. I'm just grateful she took a chance, and I hope that it encourages other casting directors to keep doing that, because I think without them taking that leap of faith, so many actors wouldn't get their foot in the door. I think that an actor's job is to transform.” She's passionate about “bringing working class actors into the world of screen acting,” and has been inspired by Stephen Graham. “He's so brilliant at climbing the ladder, looking down and helping people up. That's so inspiring to me. If I could do what he did for me and is continuing to do for others, I'd be so overjoyed.”
Away from work, Doherty is private, but decompresses by enjoying the small things. “Walks, family, engaging in normal conversation.” You sense she finds the concept of celebrity so bizarre that describing her downtime is a weird notion in itself. Despite whatever's been written about her (none of which she reads), success has forced her “to really, really lean into my people. I have a very small circle.” She is happily in a relationship, but contrary to newspaper headlines, her girlfriend “isn't in the industry”.
You can see why Adolescence appealed. She admits she is “awful” at her phone, always leaving her family on read, and says too many of us are addicted to technology. “I don't think I'm doing it right either,” she says of her scarce digital approach. “I feel like there's got to be a better balance. I've just kind of gone the opposite end of the scale.” Of Gen Z, who are growing up internet natives, she has “such empathy.” “It just completely freaks me out. I don't know how I'd manage.”
She shies away from public perceptions about her, and is firm about why: “I just want people to watch the show. I don't necessarily need to know what you think about it. If you want to come up to me and we'll talk about it, great, but I don't need to be a part of that conversation online. That's not for me.” Instead, her family and set of lifelong friends are her barometer. “They'll be like, ‘Things are really positive for you. Just know that you're doing alright.' I don't need to look any further. If my people are telling me that it's all good, then that's enough.”
As for what's next, she's vague, but implies nothing's firmly on the table yet. She will reveal, though, that more queer storytelling is a priority. “I feel like that's going to be the route that I go down. Because, as I say, I'm so deeply passionate about telling queer stories and providing that representation. I hope that's something I'll get to pursue down the line. Breaking the kind of mould of it being a trope or like a cliche, being the queer friend, or the exploration of the relationships. They do exist, but it's really rare to find the nuance and the levels of detail of what it means to be queer.” She's inspired by “the way Steven collaborated with Jack Thorne on Adolescence. I'd love to maybe collaborate with a writer because I don't know if I've got the bravery to be like, ‘And now I'm going to write this thing.' I hold my hand up, I am definitely an actor.”
She circles back to that much needed holiday, then, on the topic of future roles, offers me a final one of her beautiful thought spirals. “I just like people,” she says. “Trying to figure out why we behave the way we behave, whether that means putting on a corset and walking down the cobbles of East End London or putting on an Adidas tracksuit and exploring what that means in 2025.”
Adolescence is available to stream on Netflix now
Read more: Adolescence fans are discovering ‘unbearably tense' Stephen Graham drama Boiling Point
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Figure 02's human-like gait is the product of the company's simulated reinforcement learning system, and is just the beginning of its plans to make its robots perform physical tasks more naturally.
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A U.S. robotics company has used artificial intelligence (AI) to give its humanoid robots a more natural-looking stride, and they say it's just the beginning.
In the promotional video, the robot, called Figure 02 and manufactured by the company Figure, marches with a "human-like" gait. This is an ability it claims will help its robot to navigate the physical world more easily.
"These initial results are exciting, but we believe they only hint at the full potential of our technology," company representatives wrote in a blog post accompanying its announcement. "We're committed to extending our learned policy to handle every human-like scenario the robot might face in the real world."
Robots have been running, cartwheeling, doing backflips, breakdancing, and beating us at chess for years now. But performing tasks that appear simple to humans, such as walking in a straight line, gripping objects, tying shoelaces, and navigating social situations, have proven tough for robots to master.
Related: Chinese humanoid robot is the 'fastest in the world' thanks to its trusty pair of sneakers
The problem, known as Moravec's Paradox, emerges because computers excel at problems that require complex calculations and large datasets, but lack our real-world experience honed by millions of years of evolution. This makes robots' shuffling gaits, well, robotic at best. At worst, it gives them the appearance that they may have soiled themselves.
To tackle the robot's unnatural gait, Figure's engineers used a learning technique called reinforcement learning — placing thousands of virtual robots inside a physics simulator that recreates various terrains, thereby improving their walking through trial and error.
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By rewarding the virtual robot army for natural motions, they refined their gaits to appear more human-like. With this task accomplished, they uploaded the refined "Learned Natural Walking" model to a real-world Figure 02 robot. The result is an android that can move somewhat naturally, with heel strikes, toe-offs and synchronized arm swings.
Figure's reinforcement learning technique is key to the California company's plans to roll out its robots on factory floors. It has already tested its humanoid robots in a BMW factory in 2024 and plans to introduce more this year. Meanwhile, Apptronik, a Texas-based competitor, is also commercializing its humanoid robot, Apollo, for use in Mercedes-Benz factories by the end of 2025. Agility Robotics' Digit will also be introduced into warehouses this year.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
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The Sandman - Canceled After 2 Seasons
Streamer: Netflix
Cancellation Date: January 2025
Netflix confirmed that there will be no third season of The Sandman.
The 1% Club - Canceled at Prime, Picked Up for Season 2 at Fox
Streamer: Prime Video
Cancellation Date: January 2025
The game show The 1% Club originally debuted at Prime Video, but will now air its second season on Fox instead.
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Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
Prince Harry reportedly lost a venue for the charity he recently resigned from, Sentebale.
The 40-year-old royal lost out the venue for the African charity because he wanted to bring a Netflix camera crew along with him, the chairperson of the charity has claimed in a new interview.
In an interview with the UK's Sky News, Dr. Sophie Chandauka said that an opportunity for Sentebale to do a charity Polo Challenge in Miami was ruined when Harry made the request to bring his Netflix camera crew along.
Keep reading to find out more…
“About a month before the event was about to take place, Prince Harry called the team and said, ‘I'm doing a Netflix show, and I would love to bring a camera crew so that I can include some footage in this show,'” she said.
“And so the team called me and told me, ‘Oh, Prince Harry's made this request, so we're doing the things.'
“I said, ‘You can't be doing the things without seeking consent from the property owners, the sponsors, all the guests. Nobody signed up to being on a Netflix show,'” she called, adding: “We come up with draft agreements and of course, the venue owner says this is now a commercial undertaking. So here are my terms. We couldn't afford it. So now we lost the venue.”
Harry was able to come up with another venue for the event in April 2024.
“We're excited about it. We would have been really excited had we known ahead of time, but we didn't,” Dr. Chandauka said.
“And so the choreography went badly on stage because we had too many people on stage. The international press captured this, and there was a lot of talk about the Duchess and the choreography on stage and whether she should have been there and her treatment of me,” she continued.
“Prince Harry asked me to issue some sort of a statement in support of the Duchess, and I said I wouldn't. Not because I didn't care about the Duchess, but because I knew what would happen if I did so, number one. And number two, because we cannot be an extension of the Sussexes.”
Harry and his co-founder quit the charity last week, issuing a statement slamming the operations of Dr. Chandauka and her colleagues. She remains in position, and said the statement was “a damaging piece of news to the outside world without informing me or my country directors' was an ‘attack' and ‘an example of harassment and bullying at scale.”
A source close to the former trustees described the claims as “completely baseless.”
Both parties released statements at the same time about Harry stepping down from the charity. Read them here.
Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
Whoopi Goldberg is revealing the major film roles she's gotten because other people said no.
The 69-year-old The View co-host and actress spoke out about her experience in Hollywood in the new Apple TV+ documentary Number One on the Call Sheet.
The two-part documentary film celebrates the groundbreaking Black artists of Hollywood.
During the documentary, Whoopi revealed what happened after her first major film role, in 1985′s The Color Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg, which landed her an Oscar nomination.
She revealed that her next films saw her taking on roles rejected by other stars, despite the Oscar nom.
Keep reading to find out more…
“You discover that you get what you get, and for me, I went and found stuff,” she explained.
“I wanted to know what people were not gonna do. Things that they had greenlit and then said, ‘No, we're not gonna do [it] 'cause the person dropped out.' ”
“So that's how I got Jumpin' Jack Flash, ‘cause Shelley Long wasn't gonna do it,” she revealed.
“That's how I got Burglar, ‘cause Bruce Willis wasn't gonna do it. I got Fatal Beauty because Cher wasn't going to do it. I got Sister Act because Bette Midler wasn't going to do it.”
“Ghost, that wasn't written for me either,” she went on. “But then Patrick Swayze said, ‘I want her.' So that's how I got Ghost.”
She also explained why she won't go back to the Kennedy Center.
Watch a trailer for the documentary…
Morgan Wallen is making headlines after a sudden exit.
The 31-year-old country star suddenly walked off stage in the middle of the end of Saturday Night Live on Saturday (March 29), in which he appeared as musical guest.
During the moment, he seemingly says something to host Mikey Madison before giving her a one-armed hug and heading for the exit as the rest of the cast stayed on stage, as is customary for every episode during the ending credits roll.
Viewers felt that something was off, especially as castmates Ego Nwodim and Kenan Thompson looked confused by his exit.
Keep reading to find out more...
Later in the night, Morgan posted on his Instagram Story a photo of a private jet and wrote, "Get me to God's country."
However, a source close to Morgan says his walking off stage was an accident.
"We're told he entered and exited the studio the same way he did Saturday night during rehearsal and camera blocking all week leading up to the live show...so he routinely headed that way when he thought it was time to go," TMZ reported on Sunday (March 30).
If you'll recall, this isn't the only controversy involving SNL and Morgan: in October 2020, he was disinvited as the musical guest after he was caught partying it up in Alabama with no mask amid COVID-19 protocols. He ended up on the show two months later.
Find out what else happened during the episode.
Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
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Jack Falahee explained why he and Conrad Ricamora needed “a break” after playing onscreen love interests on How to Get Away With Murder — and how that experience paved the way for a lifelong friendship.
“He's a rock star and one of the loves of my life,” Falahee, 36, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting his guest spot on Grosse Pointe Garden Society. “It was bizarre. We needed a break after the show wrapped — and it was a very intense union with the two of us on screen.”
Falahee and Ricamora, 46, have since found a new normal. “It took us a second, and then I flew out to New York to see him. I was so grateful that we had taken the break,” he told Us. “Because I think it gave us the runway to now have this really, really beautiful friendship.”
While reflecting on the challenges he faced after an on-set injury, Falahee recalled Ricamora's support, adding, “He's another person that has just been an incredible shoulder to lean on. I would kill for the opportunity to work with him again. But he's busy being a Broadway star. I mean, have you seen Oh, Mary!? He's absolutely sensational.”
Falahee added: “I will fly literally around the world to see him on stage. And if anyone has the opportunity to, they should as well.”
The former costars won Us over as Connor and Oliver on ABC's How to Get Away With Murder. During the show's run from 2014 to 2020, the fictional couple faced many ups and downs. Off screen, however, the How to Get Away With Murder cast remained close even after moving on to new projects.
“We stopped filming shortly before the COVID pandemic. So especially in those early days, we were really relying on each other since we became a family,” Falahee told Us. “We were sort of a support group for one another through that really difficult time for the world at large.”
The actor called the experience “a light in the darkness,” adding, “To have the final season of the show be airing and for us to be on our group chat and sharing memories with one another. It's not often in our industry that you do get to work with people again. … I definitely subscribe in this line of work that I know it is unlikely that I'll get to work with people again — but I desperately hope to.”
After taking a break from acting due to an injury, Falahee is back and better than ever with a guest spot on his HTGAWM costar Aja Naomi King's show.
“It was really nice. To be honest, I have had some very lean years. It's been really tough in the industry and coming out of the pandemic and into the strike. Then last year, I was on a film and I ruptured my Achilles [tendon] — and that took me out for the entire year,” he revealed. “At the end of last year, I was recovering from surgery and really down. I was having a really tough time and I just reached out to a couple of friends that I knew were working and asked for help. I asked if they would keep an eye out for anything that might be right for me.”
Falahee immediately felt the support from King, 40.
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“[She] called me and was like, ‘There's a really fun little arc on my show, and all the scenes would be with me.' That's just a testament to who she is as a person. She could tell that I was having a tough time,” he recalled. “And I stayed with her and her [husband] Dan [King] and their son while we were filming. There was a snowstorm in Atlanta, and it hadn't snowed in 13 years so production got shut down.”
Falahee continued: “It was just so nice to be living with them and not only get to observe how much she's grown as an actress and a leader on set — but also as a partner and a mother. It was nice to be inside of their world for a little bit. … It was a very therapeutic moment in my life and started this year on a really positive note for me. So I'm just eternally grateful.”
Grosse Pointe Garden Society airs on NBC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET, and new episodes are available to stream on Peacock the next day.
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The title of Jason Statham's latest movie, A Working Man, is very appropriate because he's the working man's action hero.
Since Statham's breakout role in The Transporter, he's worked steadily in Hollywood with a lot of action credits to his name.
The Transporter is arguably one of Statham's best movies, and it shares some themes in common with A Working Man's anti-human trafficking plot. But like several of Statham's top films — including Crank and Wrath of Man — The Transporter isn't readily available on a mainstream streamer.
That made it a challenge for What to Watch to put together this list of three Jason Statham action movies to watch if you liked A Working Man. But these films will give you the action fix that you need.
Transporter 3 may not be as amazing as the original film in the franchise, but it's a joy to watch Statham playing Frank Martin one more time. Although Frank is largely retired from being the underworld's No. 1 getaway driver, he's forced back into action by a corrupt executive, Jonas Johnson (Prison Break's Robert Knepper).
To ensure Frank's cooperation, he and a hostage, Valentina Tomilenko (Natalya Rudakova), are forced to wear bracelets that will explode and kill them if they move too far away from the car. But if Johnson thinks that's enough to keep Frank in line, then he's in for a very rude awakening.
Transporter 3 is streaming on Tubi.
Safe features Statham at his most vulnerable as his character, Luke Wright, wrestles with suicidal despair after the loss of his wife and unborn child. Luke made the mistake of winning a fixed MMA fight, and the Russian mafia punished him by killing everyone he knew and loved. That leaves Luke homeless and contemplating the end of his life.
Luke finds his chance for redemption when he stumbles upon the attempted kidnapping of Mei (Catherine Chan), a young Chinese girl who is used by criminals as a living calculator. Mei's a mathematical genius, and the Russian mob wants the number that she has memorized. By keeping Mei out of the wrong hands, Luke may even be able to get his revenge on the men who murdered his family.
Safe is streaming on Prime Video.
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Statham also plays a down-on-his-luck character in Wild Card. The improbably named Nick Wild (Statham) has a severe gambling addiction, which he fuels by offering out his services as a bodyguard. But as a favor to his friend Holly (Dominik Garcia-Lorido), Nick agrees to confront the man who sexually assaulted her, Danny DeMarco (Milo Ventimiglia), and secure her restitution.
DeMarco is connected in the criminal underworld, and he won't let Nick's actions go unanswered. That comes back to haunt Nick when he's escorting a young man, Cyrus Kinnick (Michael Angarano), on a personal tour of Las Vegas' high-rolling casinos.
Wild Card is streaming on Prime Video.
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Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
Chloe Fineman played herself in a sketch on Saturday Night Live this weekend!
The 36-year-old appeared as her self in the “Jury Duty” sketch, which saw various people trying to give excuses to get out of jury duty.
When Chloe appeared, she told the judge she had prepared impressions for her, and went on to do Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff on this season of The White Lotus.
Keep reading to find out more…
“Piper, nooooo,” she said while imitating Parker. As she got carried away by a bailiff, she yelled out Lorazepam, which is a sedative medication that Victoria was taking in the first few episodes before her husband took her bottle for himself.
Also in the sketch, host Mikey Madison played a girl trying to suggest she was a celebrity, but then revealed she was just someone Caitlyn Jenner hit with her car.
Check out the full sketch right here – you can see Chloe‘s impression at the 4:25 mark.
Dave Navarro and Vanessa DuBasso are married!
The 57-year-old Jane's Addiction guitar player and the 32-year-old actress tied the knot in a castle on Saturday (March 29) in Stranraer, Scotland.
According to People, the couple always dreamed of getting married in a castle and once they saw photos of Dunskey Estate, they were immediately captivated!
Keep reading to find out more...
"It exudes a moody, ethereal charm. Surrounded by a towering forest, a serene lake and the ruins of a castle along the shoreline, it felt like stepping into a fairytale," Vanessa told the outlet.
"We wanted our wedding to feel like a dream," Dave added. "It was important to us to find a place that felt unlike anywhere we had ever been, a place that embraced nature and transported us to another world. We wanted our loved ones to share in this intimate experience."
Dave and Vanessa exchanged their vows at a forest ceremony with a series of gold candelabra at the altar. The aisle was lined with white roses and chandeliers hung from the trees. Ali Orr Ewing, the owner of the estate, was their officiant.
The groom wore an all black look from Generation Tux, while the bride collaborated on her Victorian-inspired dress with Grace + Ivory designer Tina Wong.
The bridal look featured a "Marie Antoinette-style corset detailed with three different appliqué styles to create an intricate pattern. The corset's front was adorned with a cross emblem featuring delicate, freshwater pearl beading. The back had black velvet lacing in a nod to Navarro's black suit."
She also wore a pair of Versace heels and a pair of angel wings, a nod to Dave calling her his "breathing cherub."
For their ceremony, a three-piece quartet performed classical music, with Vanessa walking down the aisle to Debussy's "Clair de Lune." After their marital kiss, they both walked down the aisle to "Spring 1" from Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons as fireworks lit up the sky!
Among the guests were Pete Davidson, and they ate a dinner of pasta, filet mignon and seafood, plus an array of Scottish desserts. The cake featured "a classic domed confection consisting of layers of sponge, raspberry jam, vanilla custard and whipped cream and topped with a marzipan overlay."
Afterwards, the guests danced the night away in the castle's dungeon, with pizza as "a cozy, late-night snack."
Congratulations to the happy couple!
Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
Emily VanCamp is pretty in white while attending the Northern Lights event held on Thursday night (March 27) in Los Angeles.
The 38-year-old actress made a rare public outing at the event, which was hosted by Bell Media president Sean Cohan to celebrate the creative achievements and growing global influence of Canadian storytellers across film, television, and digital media.
Also in attendance were Nathan Fillion, Giacomo Gianniotti, Drew and Jonathan Scott, with fiancée Zooey Deschanel, Lilly Singh, Mena Massoud and fiancée Emily Shah, and Humble the Poet.
Last year, Emily welcomed her second child with husband Josh Bowman and has kept a low profile since, aside from lending her voice to Marvel's What If...? series.
If you missed it, it was recently announced that Nathan will be one of 25 guest stars on the upcoming final season of Big Mouth on Netflix. He's also set to star in the forthcoming Superman movie!
Browse through the gallery to see more photos of Emily VanCamp, Nathan Fillion and others...
Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney Hang Out Together in Texas After She Reportedly Called Off Her Wedding
The Real Reason Why Morgan Wallen Abruptly Exited 'Saturday Night Live' Stage
Richard Chamberlain Dead - 'Dr. Kildare' & 'The Thorn Birds' Actor Dies at 90
20 TV Shows Canceled in 2025: 4 From CBS, 3 From HBO, 5 From Prime Video & More
Emily VanCamp is pretty in white while attending the Northern Lights event held on Thursday night (March 27) in Los Angeles.
The 38-year-old actress made a rare public outing at the event, which was hosted by Bell Media president Sean Cohan to celebrate the creative achievements and growing global influence of Canadian storytellers across film, television, and digital media.
Also in attendance were Nathan Fillion, Giacomo Gianniotti, Drew and Jonathan Scott, with fiancée Zooey Deschanel, Lilly Singh, Mena Massoud and fiancée Emily Shah, and Humble the Poet.
Last year, Emily welcomed her second child with husband Josh Bowman and has kept a low profile since, aside from lending her voice to Marvel's What If...? series.
If you missed it, it was recently announced that Nathan will be one of 25 guest stars on the upcoming final season of Big Mouth on Netflix. He's also set to star in the forthcoming Superman movie!
Browse through the gallery to see more photos of Emily VanCamp, Nathan Fillion and others...
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NCAAF
LOS ANGELES — USC began laying the groundwork for its 2025 season when it opened spring practice on Tuesday. The Trojans have three practices in the books. Here's what we've learned.
1. Five-star freshman quarterback Husan Longstreet is the highest-rated newcomer on the roster this spring. Jayden Maiava started four games in Lincoln Riley's offense late last season and has another season's worth of starting experience at UNLV. That makes him the clear favorite to be the opening-day starter for USC.
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But Longstreet has the potential to be the long-term answer for Riley and the Trojans, so he will be a major storyline moving forward.
Riley noted that Longstreet had the benefit of practicing with the team during bowl prep, so Tuesday wasn't his first college practice. And Longstreet attended meetings and practices before he signed, so he was about as prepared as a true freshman could be for his first day of spring ball.
“It's paid off because he's way further ahead than most guys would be at this age,” Riley said. “His ability to communicate and manage the group right now as a young guy is pretty impressive.”
I don't take Riley's words to mean that there is a quarterback competition, but I do find it interesting comparing his thoughts on Longstreet with how he spoke about Malachi Nelson — the other five-star QB he signed at USC — a few years ago.
Of course, Nelson was limited by a shoulder injury when he arrived as an early enrollee, but it felt like Riley always spoke about the progress that Nelson needed to make. Nelson lasted just one year at USC. It's still only a few practices in, but Riley's tone when speaking about Longstreet is quite different.
on the field again 🔄 pic.twitter.com/qWzNmfDTlk
— USC Football ✌️ (@uscfb) March 27, 2025
2. The other ballyhooed addition for USC this past recruiting cycle was four-star defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, who was arguably the most significant recruiting win of Riley's tenure in Los Angeles.
USC has a lot of good players on its roster. However, the Trojans need more high-ceiling talent, especially along the defensive front, and the 6-foot-5, 290-pound Stewart is just that.
Stewart is listed as a defensive end, but has the size and athleticism to line up pretty much anywhere on the D-line.
“Physically, there's no doubt he's going to have an opportunity to help,” Riley said. “It'll just be about his progress out here (on the practice field).”
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Riley pointed out a few things that will determine how much Stewart contributes early on — how he picks up the playbook and how he adjusts to facing college offensive linemen. The latter will be particularly important, considering Stewart didn't play a ton of varsity football due to transfer rules in Louisiana and the fact that he reclassified and should now be in the second semester of his junior year.
Stewart arrived at USC with plenty of hype. The program likely had to invest a lot in him on the NIL front. But there have been positive reviews of how he's carried himself early on.
“He's a cool person. He works. He knows the goal,” sophomore defensive end Kameryn Fountain said. “He (knew) what it (was) when he got here. He came to work, good person, stayed humble.”
Junior defensive end Braylan Shelby said: “(He's) physical, really locked in. I like where his headspace is at. I like where he's developing and growing. He's going to be a star. Y'all are going to see soon, though.”
3. Shelby and Fountain are two promising defensive ends and were both top-100 prospects in their respective recruiting cycles.
Shelby was asked what he's worked on this offseason. “That pass rush,” he said. “We need to get home way more this season. Been practicing a lot of different pass-rush moves.”
The Trojans finished with a meager 21 sacks last season, which ranked 92nd nationally. While USC did have some intriguing talent on the defensive line, it lacked a true, proven pass rusher.
That was made abundantly clear whenever the defense took the field late in games needing a stop to seal the win but couldn't get off the field because it didn't have someone who could truly disrupt an offense up front.
Shelby, Fountain and Lucas have combined for seven career sacks. If USC's defense is going to take a step forward this season, it needs its pass rushers to make a significant leap.
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4. Despite their need for playmakers on the defensive front, the Trojans are not expected to pursue Stanford edge rusher David Bailey out of the transfer portal, according to a source briefed on the matter.
Bailey had 14.5 sacks, 22.5 tackles for loss and seven forced fumbles in his three seasons with the Cardinal. His play was one of the few bright spots on an otherwise awful Stanford defense.
Bailey's recruiting decision out of Mater Dei came down to Stanford and USC in December 2021. Shortly after he was hired, Riley made a push and got Bailey, whose sister attended USC, to campus. But Stanford won out.
Bailey will be one of the most sought-after players in the upcoming transfer cycle, but USC — for now — is not expected to be in the mix.
5. Some other news regarding USC's defensive line: Lucas is still not a full practice participant after he missed the second half of last season with a lower leg injury, which required surgery in October.
Riley said that it's possible Lucas will be able to practice this spring, but the staff is going to take it slow with its starting defensive end.
“Certainly won't get into full contact, full speed,” Riley said. “We're being smart with it.”
Kentucky transfer Keeshawn Silver is also not full-go at practice yet. The 6-4, 331-pound Silver was a significant addition this winter and figures to plug the middle of USC's defense. Riley acknowledged that the staff knew Silver required a “little cleanup” on his knee when he transferred. But as far as when Silver will be a full practice participant, Riley said, “We'll see.”
6. Maiava is going to be under major scrutiny this season. That comes with the territory for any USC starting quarterback, but it's also because Maiava was so inconsistent during his four starts to end last season.
Which Maiava will show up down-to-down is a big question. But this is his second year in Riley's offense, which should benefit him. And he'll start this spring with the knowledge that he's in the lead in the starting quarterback race. Consistent first-team reps should also help.
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Riley has noticed the redshirt junior is more confident as a player, in the offense and in his relationships with his teammates.
“That's what we're going to need him to be,” Riley said.
“I came in last year and was a little, kind of lost in some ways, but I've definitely found my way being able to connect with these coaches,” Maiava said. “These coaches have been a huge help for me, so I've been more (intentional) in everything I do.”
Maiva admitted that he had happy feet when he was thrown into the starting lineup. Even though he started for a season at UNLV, it was abundantly clear last year that he's still raw, especially from a technical standpoint. He said this offseason offered him the chance to reflect on those issues during film study, and he's trying to iron them out on the practice field this spring.
“He's not one that you really worry about getting complacent or not wanting to work on the areas he knows he needs to attack,” Riley said. “For him, it's more like, don't be so hard on yourself, we'll be plenty hard enough on you. Make sure you give yourself credit for the plays you have made and the progress you have made as well. So I think, for him, it's a little bit of that balance.”
Maiava's ability to find that balance will go a long way in determining USC's trajectory this fall.
8. Riley described the linebacker unit as “thin” but also expressed excitement about the talent level.
Desman Stephens II and Eric Gentry are the front-runners to start, but I believe the Trojans should target the position in the transfer portal.
Gentry is talented and can make an impact when he's on the field, but he's missed multiple games because of injury in two of his three seasons at USC.
If there is an injury to either Stephens or Gentry, the Trojans would have to count on some inexperienced options, and that would not be a fun experiment in the Big Ten. So that's an obvious position of need.
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9. Former linebacker Elijah Newby will practice at defensive end this spring. Newby looks the part physically at 6-foot-3, 232 pounds, but USC wants to see how his athleticism translates to the edge.
“He's got the talent, the mindset,” Riley said of the redshirt freshman. “There's definitely a role. This guy is going to make an impact. I think it's us and him kind of finding that right spot.”
10. The media hadn't spoken to safety Kamari Ramsey much since he decided to return to USC for another season instead of opting for the NFL Draft.
“(I) have some unfinished business, things I wanted to improve, work on, put stuff on tape,” Ramsey said on Thursday. “After long talks with my family, coach (D'Anton) Lynn, coach (Doug) Belk, coach Riley, the best decision for me and my family was to come back and play another year.”
Ramsey's return was huge for the USC defense. He is a tremendous tackler, especially in the open field, and his football IQ stands out in nearly every game.
He is the lone returning starter in the secondary. The battle for the other starting safety spot should be compelling. The staff brought in NC State transfer Bishop Fitzgerald, but junior Christian Pierce has been patiently waiting for his chance and will be heard from in the competition as well.
“Really, my expectations are just to give my all like I've been doing every year,” Pierce said. “Trying to make as many plays as I can on special teams, same as when I get the opportunity on defense.”
(Photo of Jayden Maiava: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
Antonio Morales covers USC football for The Athletic. Previously, he spent three years at the Clarion Ledger in Mississippi, where he covered Ole Miss for two seasons and Jackson State for another. He also spent two years covering preps for the Orange County Register and Torrance Daily Breeze. Follow Antonio on Twitter @AntonioCMorales