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      Volunteer Rescuers in Mandalay Sift Through Earthquake Rubble

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      In Mandalay, near the epicenter of the quake that rocked the region, volunteer rescue workers raced against time as they combed through the ruins of apartments, monasteries and mosques to find survivors. Others struggled to come to terms with all they had lost.Downed power lines, destroyed roads and a lack of equipment made rescue work even harder in a city already enduring a repressive military government and a civil war that is now in its fourth year.“There are at least a hundred people still trapped inside,” said Thaw Zin, a volunteer who was sitting in front of a destroyed condominium. “We are trying our best with what we have.”The earthquake, which struck at about 12:50 p.m. Friday local time, was only the third of such magnitude to hit the region in the past century. The extent of the catastrophe remains enormous: the Myanmar military junta declared a state of emergency in six regions. These include rebel-controlled areas where there is little internet and millions of displaced people.The earthquake caused the collapse of Mandalay’s Maha Myat Muni Pagoda, also known as the Mahamuni Buddha Temple.EPA, via ShutterstockSu Wai Lin managed to escape with her husband and mother-in-law when the earthquake struck, but her husband ran back into their apartment building in Mandalay to save their 90-year-old neighbor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Presses French Companies to Comply With Trump’s Anti-Diversity Policies

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      For months, French businesses have been bracing for the fallout of trade wars and tariff threats from the United States as the effects of President Trump’s “America First” policies ripple out. But this past week, the French corporate world was roiled by another type of Trump missive.In a terse three-paragraph letter sent by the American Embassy in France to French companies, executives were told that President Trump’s moves to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies would apply to any firm doing business with the U.S. government. It said it was giving them five days to sign a form indicating that they would comply.An executive order that Mr. Trump signed the day after taking office instructs federal contractors not to engage in D.E.I., which the order described as “illegal discrimination.” The letter to French businesses said the order “applies to all suppliers and contractors of the U.S. government, regardless of their nationality and the country in which they operate.”“If you do not agree to sign this document, we would appreciate it if you could provide detailed reasons, which we will forward to our legal services,” the letter said. The accompanying form added that companies must certify “that they do not operate any programs promoting D.E.I.”The notice caused a sensation in the French corporate world and drew a curt reply from the French government.“This practice reflects the values ​​of the new American government. They are not ours,” the economy ministry said in a statement late Friday. France’s economy minister, Eric Lombard, “will remind his counterparts within the American government of this,” the statement said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pension Funds Push Forward on Climate Goals Despite Backlash

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      At a time of resistance to environmental, social and governance goals, pension funds have become a bulwark against efforts to sideline climate risks.In the past few months, some of the largest banks and asset managers in the United States have quit net zero networks, the climate groups that encourage their members to set ambitious carbon reduction targets and collaborate internationally on sustainability efforts.But the week after Donald J. Trump won re-election in November, NYCERS, a pension fund for New York City employees, went in the opposite direction. It joined a United Nations-affiliated climate action group for long-term investors, the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance.The timing wasn’t intentional, said Brad Lander, the comptroller who oversees the city’s finances, including the pension fund, and is now running for mayor. But, he added, “we were pleased that the timing sent an important signal.”“It is far more important than it was for pension funds and other big asset owners to take collective action at this moment,” Mr. Lander said.At a time of growing backlash to environmental, social and governance goals and investment strategies, pension funds, particularly in blue states and Europe, have emerged as a bulwark against efforts to sideline climate-related risks.The funds, which sit at the top of the investment chain, have stepped up engagement with asset managers and companies on climate goals and have kept public commitments to use their fiscal might to reduce carbon emissions. In some cases, that has meant shifting to European asset managers, which have not backed off on climate commitments as much as their American counterparts have.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Earthquake Devastates Myanmar’s Cultural Sites

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      The powerful earthquake that shook Myanmar on Friday took a considerable toll on historic and religious sites across the country, toppling pagodas, collapsing sections of Buddhist monasteries and reducing centuries-old monuments to rubble, according to photographs and videos shared by witnesses and verified by The New York Times.In its latest count on Saturday morning, Myanmar’s government said that over 3,000 buildings had been damaged, including about 150 mosques and pagodas.Southwest of Mandalay, the 200-year-old Me Nu Brick Monastery appeared to be largely destroyed. Tiers of the building’s distinctive balconies had collapsed around the bulky interior walls.Southeast of Mandalay, a video showed the ornate golden spire of the Shwe Sar Yan Pagoda toppling over, to the screams of onlookers.Verified video, via ReutersIn Mandalay city, a large pagoda that stood on the palace walls was left tilted at a sharp angle; elsewhere, a section of the walls crumbled.To the west of the city, a video showed Buddhist monks gathered around the ruins of a decorative clock tower that had served as a centerpiece of the New Masoeyein Monastery.@Ashin Tikkhanyarna Linkara/Facebook, via AFPSeconds later, video showed their five-story monastery building collapsing before them. Dozens of monks who lived at the monastery slept out on mats in nearby streets on Friday night. One of them, Moe Nat Ashin, photographed the scene.@Bar Ku/Facebook, via AFPPhotos shared by the Burma Human Rights Network showed fallen minarets and domes of mosques in several parts of the country. The online news outlet Mizzima, citing local officials and residents, reported that 490 people were killed in mosque collapses on Friday.In Pindaya, 70 miles from the epicenter, Buddhist monuments known as stupas that adorned a large monastery were toppled, and cracks split the foundations of others that survived.All around the stupas, the remains of golden spires and the red bricks common to the region littered the ground.In one witness video, onlookers wailed as the top of the monastery’s largest stupas crumbled in an aftershock.Ko Ye Win Naing, via TikTok“Pindaya felt some earthquakes before but not so strong like today’s,” said Tun Tun Aye, the administrator of a Facebook page for the monastery. He said that the stupas were believed to be more than a century old, and that he did not know how the monastery would be restored.In Nepal in 2015, billions of dollars were pledged toward reconstruction after two earthquakes devastated the country. Initially hampered by bureaucracy, the restoration led to a resurgence in traditional craftsmanship in the country.But in Myanmar, which is ruled by a military junta that has terrorized civilian areas as it battles a rebel movement, establishing a unified and internationally supported reconstruction effort is likely to be more challenging. More

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      Molly Young on Space and Music

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      A Booker-winning novel; a rocking essay collection.Édouard Manet/Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial CollectionDear readers,Do you know the difference between an astronaut and a cosmonaut? The distinction rests on where the -naut was trained: Cosmonauts hail from Russia and astronauts from the United States, Canada, or Europe. Not China, though: The Chinese version is a taikonaut. If there exists another job with three different names of equally silky mouth-feel, I cannot think of it.The -naut distinction is one of several vocabulary upgrades you might receive from Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital,” which has taken the books desk by storm. Nobody pays us to get obsessed with specific books all at once; it just happens. (If we got paid, you’d know. Our fingers would be heavy with diamonds.)To counteract the expansive dreaminess of “Orbital,” I got down and dirty with Ian Penman’s collection of music essays. If you’re hankering to see the likes of James Brown and Prince (among others) treated with the penetration of an X-ray machine and the besottedness of a poet, Penman is your fella.—Molly“Orbital,” by Samantha HarveyFiction, 2023We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Top FDA Vaccine Official Resigns, Citing Kennedy’s ‘Misinformation and Lies’

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      The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned under pressure Friday and said that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive stance on vaccines was irresponsible and posed a danger to the public.“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr. Marks wrote to Sara Brenner, the agency’s acting commissioner. He reiterated the sentiments in an interview, saying: “This man doesn’t care about the truth. He cares about what is making him followers.”Dr. Marks resigned after he was summoned to the Department of Health and Human Services Friday afternoon and told that he could either quit or be fired, according to a person familiar with the matter.Dr. Marks led the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which authorized and monitored the safety of vaccines and a wide array of other treatments, including cell and gene therapies. He was viewed as a steady hand by many during the Covid pandemic but had come under criticism for being overly generous to companies that sought approvals for therapies with mixed evidence of a benefit.His continued oversight of the F.D.A.’s vaccine program clearly put him at odds with the new health secretary. Since Mr. Kennedy was sworn in on Feb. 13, he has issued a series of directives on vaccine policy that have signaled his willingness to unravel decades of vaccine safety policies. He has rattled people who fear he will use his powerful government authority to further his decades-long campaign of claiming that vaccines are singularly harmful, despite vast evidence of their role in saving millions of lives worldwide.“Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at F.D.A. is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety and security,” Dr. Marks wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Naval Academy Takes Steps to End Diversity Policies in Books and Admissions

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      The Pentagon and U.S. Naval Academy are proceeding with actions in support of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate “woke” initiatives throughout the federal government.The U.S. Naval Academy said it had ended its use of affirmative action in admissions, reversing a policy it previously defended as essential for diversity and national security, according to a federal court filing on Friday. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office has ordered the Naval Academy to identify books related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion themes that are housed in the school’s Nimitz Library, and to remove them from circulation.This week, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy decisions, Mr. Hegseth’s office became aware that the nation’s military service academies did not believe that President Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order to end “radical indoctrination” in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms applied to them, as they are colleges. The defense secretary’s office informed the Naval Academy that Mr. Hegseth’s intent was for the order to apply to the academies, and that the secretary expected compliance.“The U.S. Naval Academy is fully committed to executing and implementing all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president and is currently reviewing the Nimitz Library collection to ensure compliance,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman. “The Navy is carrying out these actions with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives.”The academy’s library in Annapolis, Md., houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and more than 5,000 print journals and magazines, Commander Hawkins said.The court filing on the admissions policy, submitted by the Naval Academy, the Department of Defense, Mr. Hegseth and other officials, states that the Naval Academy changed its admissions policy in February in response to federal directives prohibiting the practice of considering race, ethnicity and sex during the admissions process.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Columbia University’s President, Katrina Armstrong, Resigns

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      Katrina Armstrong is leaving the post a week after the university agreed to a list of demands from the White House.The interim president of Columbia University abruptly left her post Friday evening as the school confronted the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and the Trump administration’s mounting skepticism about its leadership.The move came one week after Columbia bowed to a series of demands from the federal government, which had canceled approximately $400 million in essential federal funding, and it made way for Columbia’s third leader since August. Claire Shipman, who had been the co-chair of the university’s board of trustees, was named the acting president and replaced Dr. Katrina Armstrong.The university, which was deeply shaken by a protest encampment last spring and a volley of accusations that it had become a safe haven for antisemitism, announced the leadership change in an email to the campus Friday night. The letter thanked Dr. Armstrong for her efforts during “a time of great uncertainty for the university” and said that Ms. Shipman has “a clear understanding of the serious challenges facing our community.”Less than a week ago, the Trump administration had signaled that it was satisfied with Dr. Armstrong and the steps she was taking to restore the funding. But in a statement on Friday, its Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said that Dr. Armstrong’s departure from the presidency was “an important step toward advancing negotiations” between the government and the university.The statement included a cryptic mention of a “concerning revelation” this week, which appeared to refer to comments from Dr. Armstrong at a faculty meeting last weekend. According to a faculty member who attended, Dr. Armstrong and her provost, Angela Olinto, confused some people when they seemed to downplay the effects of the university’s agreement with the government. A transcript of the meeting had been leaked to the news media, as well as to the Trump administration, according to two people familiar with the situation.Ms. Shipman, a journalist with two degrees from Columbia, is taking charge of one of the nation’s pre-eminent universities at an extraordinarily charged moment in American higher education.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More