Three US aid workers were laid off while in Myanmar helping the rescue and recovery from the country's massive earthquake, a former senior staffer said, as the Trump administration's dismantling of foreign aid affects its disaster response.After traveling to the Southeast Asian nation, the three officials were told late this week they would be let go, Marcia Wong, a former official at the US Agency for International Development, told Reuters."This team is working incredibly hard, focussed on getting humanitarian aid to those in need. To get news of your imminent termination - how can that not be demoralizing?" said Wong, former deputy administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which oversees Washington’s disease response efforts overseas.President Donald Trump's government has pledged at least $9 million to Myanmar after the magnitude-7.7 quake, which has killed more than 3,300. But his administration's massive cuts to USAID have hindered its ability to respond, while China, Russia, India and other nations have rushed in assistance.The Trump administration has moved to fire nearly all USAID staff in recent weeks, as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has slashed funding and dismissed contractors across the federal bureaucracy in what it calls an attack on wasteful spending.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched a drone attack at a thermal power plant in Ukraine's city of Kherson on Friday, accusing Moscow of violating a US-brokered energy ceasefire."All Russian promises end with missiles and drones, bombs or artillery. Diplomacy is an empty word for them," he said in an evening address.

The Texas Department of State Health Services on Friday reported 59 new measles cases in three days, bringing the total to 481 in the state, while New Mexico's health department reported 54 infections, adding six, as the disease spreads across the country.Cases in Gaines County, the center of the outbreak, rose to 315 from 280 on April 1, Texas' health department said. Hospitalizations rose to 56 from 42.Most of New Mexico's cases were reported in Lea County, which is adjacent to Gaines County in Texas."I think that our hope is to have seen the numbers stabilize and potentially even begin to decline, and apparently from the numbers they have published today, we're not there yet," said Dr. Sapna Singh, chief medical officer for Texas Children's Pediatrics.As of Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a weekly nationwide increase of 124 measles cases, bringing the total to 607. In 2024, the nationwide count stood at 285.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and United Launch Alliance are expected to each win a US Space Force rocket launch contract on Friday worth billions of dollars to send some of the Pentagon's most sensitive satellites into space over the next several years, according to two people familiar with the procurement decision.

The Pentagon said on Friday that Timothy Haugh will depart as the US National Security Agency director and the commander of the Cyber Command."The Defense Department thanks General Timothy Haugh for his decades of service to our nation, culminating as U.S. Cyber Command Commander and National Security Agency Director. We wish him and his family well," Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

A former model on Friday ended her lawsuit that accused a prominent psychiatrist who was once close friends with Jeffrey Epstein of helping enable the disgraced late financier's sex trafficking, and turning her into a "modern-day sex slave."The unnamed model, using the pseudonym Jane Doe 11, voluntarily dismissed her civil lawsuit against psychiatrist Henry Jarecki, according to a Manhattan federal court filing.She had accused Jarecki of raping her dozens of times starting in 2011, after Epstein referred her for mental health treatment following his own sexual abuses.