Man rescued from rubble in Myanmar’s capital as civil war complicates relief efforts
BANGKOK (AP) – Rescue crews in Myanmar pulled a 26-year-old man out alive from the rubble of the capital city hotel where he worked early Wednesday, but most teams were finding only bodies five days after a massive earthquake hit the country.
After using an endiscopic camera to pinpoint Naing Lin Tun’s location in the rubble and confirm that he was alive, the man was gingerly pulled through a hole jackhammered through a floor and loaded on to a gurney nearly 108 hours after he was trapped in the hotel where he worked.
Shirtless and covered in dust, Naing Lin Tun appeared weak but conscious in a video released by the local fire department, as he was fitted with an IV drip and taken away. State-run MRTV reported that the rescue in the city of Naypyitaw was carried out by a Turkish and local team and took more than nine hours.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit midday Friday, toppling thousands of buildings, collapsing bridges and buckling roads. So far, 2,886 people have been reported dead in Myanmar and another 4,639 injured, according to state television MRTV, but local reports suggest much higher figures.
The earthquake also rocked neighboring Thailand, causing the collapse of a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok. One body was removed from the rubble early Wednesday, raising the death total in Bangkok to 22 with 34 injured, primarily at the construction site.
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Israel´s military operation in Gaza Strip expanding to seize ‘large areas,’ defense minister says
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel´s military operation in the Gaza Strip is expanding to seize “large areas,” the defense minister said Wednesday.
Israel´s offensive in the Palestinian territory was “expanding to crush and clean the area” of militants and “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a written statement.
The Israeli government has long maintained a buffer zone just inside Gaza along its security fence and has greatly expanded since the war began in 2023. Israel says the buffer zone is needed for its security, while Palestinians view it as a land grab that further shrinks the narrow coastal territory, home to around 2 million people.
Katz didn’t specify which areas of Gaza would be seized in the expanded operation, which he said includes the “extensive evacuation” of the population from fighting areas. His statement came after Israel ordered the full evacuation of the southern city of Rafah and nearby areas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel aims to maintain an open-ended but unspecified security control of the Gaza Strip once it achieves its aim of crushing Hamas.
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As Israel advances in Gaza, many exhausted families flee again. Some can’t bear it
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) – As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again. Many are packing a few belongings and trudging off in search of new shelters. Some say they just can´t bear to move.
When ordered out of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, Ihab Suliman and his family could only grab some food and blankets before making their way south March 19. It was their eighth time fleeing over the past 18 months of war.
“There is no longer any taste to life,” said Suliman, a former university professor. “Life and death have become one and the same for us.”
Suliman is among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled temporary shelters since Israel shattered a 2-month-old ceasefire on March 18 with renewed bombardment and ground assaults.
Daunted by the notion of starting over, some Palestinians are ignoring the latest evacuation orders – even if it means risking their lives.
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Trump is set to announce ‘reciprocal’ tariffs in a risky move that could reshape the economy
WASHINGTON (AP) – After weeks of White House hype and public anxiety, President Donald Trump is set Wednesday to announce a barrage of self-described “reciprocal” tariffs on friend and foe alike.
The new tariffs – coming on what Trump has called “Liberation Day” – is a bid to boost U.S. manufacturing and punish other countries for what he has said are years of unfair trade practices. But by most economists´ assessments, the risky move threatens to plunge the economy into a downturn and mangle decades-old alliances.
The White House is exuding confidence despite the political and financial gamble being undertaken.
“April 2, 2025, will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at Tuesday´s briefing while adding that the new tariffs will take effect immediately.
The reciprocal tariffs Trump plans to announce follow similar recent announcements of 25% taxes on auto imports; levies against China, Canada and Mexico; and expanded tariffs on steel and aluminum. Trump has also put tariffs against countries that import oil from Venezuela and plans separate import taxes on pharmaceutical drugs, lumber, copper and computer chips.
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US judge orders Trump administration to restore legal aid to unaccompanied migrant children
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal judge in California on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian.
The Republican administration on March 21 terminated a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which provides legal services for unaccompanied migrant children under 18 through a network of legal aid groups that subcontract with the center. Eleven subcontractor groups sued, saying that 26,000 children were at risk of losing their attorneys; Acacia is not a plaintiff.
Those groups argued that the government has an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law to provide vulnerable children with legal counsel.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco granted a temporary restraining order late Tuesday. She wrote that advocates raised legitimate questions about whether the administration violated the 2008 law, warranting a return to the status quo while the case continues. The order will take effect Wednesday and runs through April 16.
“The Court additionally finds that the continued funding of legal representation for unaccompanied children promotes efficiency and fairness within the immigration system,” she wrote.
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Democrats’ win in Wisconsin court race also is a big loss for Elon Musk
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Judge Susan Crawford preserved liberals´ narrow majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday by defeating conservative Brad Schimel, but in a way the real loser of the election was billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk and his affiliated groups sunk at least $21 million into the normally low-profile race and paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout in the pivotal battleground state contest. That made the race the first major test of the political impact of Musk, whose prominence in President Donald Trump’s administration has skyrocketed with his chaotic cost-cutting initiative that has slashed federal agencies.
Crawford and the Democrats who backed her made Musk the focus of their arguments for holding the seat, contending he was “buying” the election, which set records for the costliest judicial race in history.
“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our Supreme Court,” Crawford said in her victory speech. “And Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price, our courts are not for sale.”
Trump endorsed Schimel as the race turned into a Proxy Quality fight over national political issues. The state´s high court can rule on cases involving voting rights and redistricting in a state likely to be at the center of both next year´s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential contest.
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Val Kilmer, ‘Top Gun’ and Batman star with an intense approach, dies at 65
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in “Top Gun,” donned a voluminous cape as Batman in “Batman Forever” and portrayed Jim Morrison in “The Doors,” has died. He was 65.
Kilmer died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, said in an email to The Associated Press. The Times was the first to report his death on Tuesday.
Val Kilmer died from pneumonia. He had recovered after a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required two tracheotomies.
“I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some. I deny none of this and have no regrets because I have lost and found parts of myself that I never knew existed,” he says toward the end of “Val,” the 2021 documentary on his career. “And I am blessed.”
Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School at the time he attended, experienced the ups and downs of fame more dramatically than most. His break came in 1984´s spy spoof “Top Secret!” followed by the comedy “Real Genius” in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops again in films including “MacGruber” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
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A wary Europe awaits Rubio with NATO’s future on the line
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels this week to a gathering of top diplomats from NATO countries and is sure to find allies that are alarmed, angered and confused by the Trump administration´s desire to reestablish ties with Russia and its escalating rhetorical attacks on longtime transatlantic partners.
Allies are deeply concerned by President Donald Trump´s readiness to draw closer to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who sees NATO as a threat, amid a U.S. effort to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine. Recent White House comments and insults directed at NATO allies Canada and Denmark – as well as the military alliance itself – have only increased the angst, especially as new U.S. tariffs are taking effect against friends and foes alike.
Rubio arrives in Brussels on Thursday for two days of meetings with his NATO counterparts and European officials, and he can expect to be confronted with questions about the future U.S. role in the alliance.
For 75 years, NATO has been anchored on American leadership, and based on what they have seen and heard since Trump took office in January, European officials have expressed deep concerns that Trump may upend all of that when he and other NATO leaders meet for a June summit in the Netherlands.
As Rubio did last month at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies, America’s top diplomat, who is regarded by many overseas as a more pragmatic and less dogmatic member of Trump’s administration, may be able to salvage a watered-down group consensus on the war in Ukraine.
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Worried families and search dogs bond during the long days of rescue effort at Bangkok collapse
BANGKOK (AP) – For most of the day, somberness clouded over a makeshift shelter set up for grief-stricken relatives of dozens of workers who remain missing at the building collapse in Bangkok. They huddled together, a short distance from the rubble, awaiting news for their loved ones to be found.
But for a few minutes, their faces broke out in smiles, as a group of fluffy, playful golden retrievers approached the waiting relatives on a break from the dogs’ rescue mission.
Bangkok is more than 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) from the epicenter of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on Friday. Fifteen of the 22 deaths reported in Bangkok were people found at the site of the collapsed high-rise, according to the Bangkok city authorities. Around 70 workers remain missing.
Pornchai Chaodongbang has been waiting for her missing brother at the site since Sunday. She said she was crying every day since the news broke, and when she saw the site of the ruins, she collapsed.
On Tuesday evening, she and dozens of others were visited by Sahara, Safari and Lek, search dogs from K9 USAR Thailand, a non-profit that works closely with the Thai government in disaster and humanitarian relief efforts.
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With a nod to America’s civil rights legacy, Sen. Cory Booker makes a mark of his own
WASHINGTON (AP) – Democratic Sen. Cory Booker ended his record-setting speech the same way he began it, more than 25 hours earlier: by invoking the words of his mentor, the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.
“He endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. He would not normalize a moment like this,” Booker said of Lewis’ work as a young activist during the Civil Rights movement. “He would not just go along with business as usual.”
“He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation,” Booker said.
A break from “business as usual” was what Booker had in mind as he performed a feat of political endurance, holding the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes while delivering a wide-ranging critique of President Donald Trump and his policies.
In doing so, Booker of New Jersey broke the record for longest Senate floor speech, a mark that had belonged for decades to Strom Thurmond, the avowed segregationist from South Carolina who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Booker said he’d been aware of Thurmond’s record since first coming to the Senate in 2013 – a room near the Senate chamber is still named for him – and it bothered him.
Высокий процент одобрения. Новые компании часто более лояльны к заемщикам, даже с плохой кредитной историей или отсутствием официального дохода.
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