California screaming: National Guard in LA

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The Economist.

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Rosie Blore.

And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

After a deadly earthquake in Myanmar in March, there were reports that the military government was continuing its bombardment despite declaring a humanitarian ceasefire. Our visual investigations team consider the evidence.

And for contact sports such as rugby, the long run risks to the brain are by now well known. So what to do about kids that play them? Rule changes and snazzy new materials might help, but banning them altogether might be more dangerous.

First up though.

Black and brown are.

Going to unite, ain't we? Ain't we? You're black and brown.

We're going to unite.

Black, brown and Asian. We're going to unite. We're going to unite.

I'm right in front of the Federal Immigration Detention facility in downtown Los Angeles where there's a line of California National Guard troops and federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security kind of just holding shields.

Aaron Braun is our west coast correspondent and this weekend she's been out reporting in la.

As I was walking up to the protest, my eyes started stinging, I started sneezing, I started coughing. You could tell that tear gas had been deployed at some point this morning and remnants of that was still in the air.

I'm out here because I'm 10 toes.

Down for everybody in this space. And the fact that this can come to anybody and has come to everybody.

It'S time for all of us to.

Be aware that no, no more.

No inch.

You give an inch, they take a mile.

We're done giving the inch. We're gonna fight back. We're gonna strategize, we're gonna get united.

We're gonna figure out we're gonna. I'm a reporter for the Economist. My name's Aaron. What are you guys handing out here?

We're a Marxist Leninist organization and we've been at all of the protests against ICE and also all of the protests in solidarity with Palestine. And there's also other things covered, you know, issues that surround the plight of working class people. Under Trump and under Biden before that, you know, it's a trend that it transcends presidential administrations.

I'm walking up now to a big rally. Hundreds of people on the steps of City Hall. There's way more people here than there were in front of the federal detention facility. Some protesters are antagonizing the officers, telling them to leave, telling them to go back where they came from. A little ironic, Some people are throwing water bottles at the police, pushing people back.

It's Pray Month, so we have a chant.

Queer, queer, unashamed. Undocumented, unafraid queen.

Queer, queer, unashamed, Undocumented, unafraid.

Those loud fireworks sounding noises are flashbangs that police or agents are firing.

Power to the people. Power to the people. No human is illegal. Power to the people. Aaron, you've described extraordinary scenes there. Just give me a rundown of what happened this weekend and how we got there.

Yeah, it's sort of a weekend that feels like a year. This all started on Friday. The Trump administration had started carrying out immigration raids across Los Angeles County. A couple of protests had cropped up in response to those raids on Friday and Saturday. Crowds were angry. They gathered in paramount and Compton, two cities about 16 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. And then another crowd gathered in front of a federal immigration detention facility where the migrants had been taken. And that's right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. And so you had some clashes between protesters and federal agents. Some protesters were videotaped throwing rocks at these agents if they drove by. But the protests themselves were pretty isolated and pretty contained. But in response to the protests that were themselves in response to these immigration raids, President Donald Trump decided to Federalize at least 2,000 members of the California National Guard and send them to Los Angeles. Gavin Newsom, California's Democratic governor, in response, insisted that local and state law enforcement had the protests well in hand and that the deployment of the National Guard was purposefully inflammatory.

So what do you make of that claim? Is President Trump acting provocatively?

Yeah, I think this is a pretty remarkable moment, I should say. We're recording this on Sunday night. It's just about midnight. And Gavin Newsom has said that on Monday, the state is going to bring a lawsuit against the president to challenge the legality of deploying the National Guard in this way. I kind of think of two things when we are assessing just how provocative Donald Trump is being on this occasion, the first is that even during his presidential campaign, and certainly over the last couple of months, his advisors have threatened local officials with prosecution if they in any way protect illegal immigrants from deportation. And then I think it's important to look at the timing of how these events unfolded. When Donald Trump decided to federalize California National Guard troops, these protests were pretty small and contained. And it wasn't actually until the Guard troops were deployed that we started to see massive demonstrations all across downtown Los Angeles. I do think we can confidently say that it was Donald Trump's calling in of the National Guard that really provoked these massive protests.

Why was Trump prepared to make such an example of what was going on.

In la, California, and Gavin Newsom in particular, have been a favorite foil of Donald Trump and honestly of Republicans in general. It's very common for members of the Republican Party to point to things that are happening in Los Angeles or San Francisco or California in general, and to suggest this sort of avatar for Democratic dysfunction. And that's exactly what we're seeing with these protests as well. If you looked on X, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff, called the protest a violent insurrection. And the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, threatened to send in Marines who are stationed in Southern California, to which Gavin Newsom suggested that that would be deranged.

So what is the administration's endgame here? Could it escalate things further?

I think we're already starting to see things escalate. I was downtown for most of the day. Things definitely kind of escalated throughout the day. And now that night has fallen, I'm still hearing helicopters outside of my house. And there are some reports of looting. Downtown Los Angeles is absolutely covered in graffiti. And now there's some reports that there were clashes between police and protesters in San Francisco and perhaps other cities to come.

Right, so you mentioned other cities. Could these protests spread?

I think they could. There are a couple of factors that will determine that these protests in Los Angeles were a reaction to these immigration raids. And these raids are certainly taking place across other cities. We saw big ones recently in Miami and Boston. So I think the potential is there. I will say that because these raids took place over the weekend, you have folks who are maybe more able to protest than they would be if they had to go to work at 8am on Monday morning. But I certainly think the potential is there for this to spread to other cities in coming days. From the Trump administration's perspective, I think they want to make an example of Los Angeles and suggest that there is Punishment and retaliation on offer for those who stand between immigrants and the mass deportation machinery that they are building.

Aaron, thank you so much for talking to me. Go and get some sleep.

Thank you, Rosie.

In Myanmar, a woman films the aftermath of a blast in a monastery complex.

Katie Bryant is a senior producer on the Economist video team.

She says their temple, built with all they have, is now completely destroyed. This man says when he heard an airplane, he knew the attack was coming. Wooden slats from the roof and walls of the building and other debris lie scattered over the floor and the surrounding area. Another man warns there is lots of metal roofing hanging from the trees nearby. This attack in April reportedly killed one woman. Later that month, a school was hit. In a video shared on Facebook, a woman walks through the school's blown out classrooms. Lessons are still on the chalkboards. Holes are blasted through the walls. Papers and textbooks litter the floor and what looks like blood is smeared across the wall. There's a pile of children's school bags, including a pink one with a cartoon princess. According to a member of a local resistance group, an aid worker and local media reports up to 24 civilians died, including children. Now, local reports suggest these strikes were carried out by Myanmar's own military government, though it denies any involvement. The military junta seized power in 2021. The coup triggered huge protests. Thousands took to the streets to demand the return of civilian rule. The junta responded with violence. A dizzying array of groups took up arms against the ruling government. And then on 28th March, after four years of bloody civil war, Myanmar experienced its worst earthquake in decades.

A major 7.7 magnitude earthquake has rocked Myanmar and Thailand. Officials in Bangkok.

As thousands lay trapped under the rubble, reports emerged that the military government was continuing its bombardment even after it declared a humanitarian ceasefire. The government frequently blocks the Internet. International journalists and many independent observers have been forced to leave the country whilst local journalists have been tortured and executed. This makes verifying what's happening on the ground a difficult and dangerous task. The non profit organization ACCLED gathers data on violent incidents around the world. Using reports from local media, we mapped the incidents reported across Myanmar in March 2025 and compared them to those in April 2025. After the earthquake, there was no let up. And then when we looked More closely at ACLED's data, we saw that 391 of these incidents were air or drone strikes. And according to acled, almost all of them were carried out by the ruling military government. They're the only armed group with the capability to carry out large airstrikes and as they've lost more and more territory on the ground, they've increasingly relied on their air power. The UN has accused them of indiscriminate targeting of towns and villages. Local media reports can be biased towards resistance groups, so organizations outside of Myanmar are using as much evidence as possible to document what's happening on the ground. The Centre for Information Resilience uses open source intelligence to document human rights violations. When they find a video of an alleged strike, they use satellite imagery to verify its location. Satellite imagery also helps track changes in vegetation, which adds weight to evidence of a blast. They documented 80 apparent air attacks in the month after the earthquake. On 19 April, videos on social media captured fires raging in the aftermath of an apparent attack in Jaitwa village. According to local media, the incident killed 13 civilians. As these atrocities continue, governments in the west have mostly turned a blind eye. This has made it easier for Myanmar's powerful neigh China to influence the conflict. But rather than press for an end to fighting, China has largely focused on protecting its own interests, suppressing pro democracy groups and defending an oil and gas pipeline which passes through the conflict zone. So for now, there is no end in sight for this bloody civil war. And the longer the military government clings onto power, the more civilians in Myanmar will continue to suffer.

And for more of our visual investigations, including coverage of Ukraine's surprise drone raid and the real death toll in Gaza, select the video tab in the Economist app.

As a teenager, I played contact sports, especially American football, and it's exhilarating. You put on that protective gear and you really feel like you're ready to take and deliver some hits.

Benjamin Sutherland writes for the Economist.

The thing is, I never actually thought much about potential head injuries. And there have been a number of concerning studies in recent years with some figures on youth injuries in contact sports.

Well, talk me through it. What does the research say?

So there was a study that came out in 2023 that found that for every 1,000 tackles in schoolboy rugby, you had nearly two concussions. There was another study of youth players of American football, and it found that one in 20 suffered a concussion in a season. So part of the problem is that you have a lot of concussions that go unreported. And if you get a second concussion before you've had total recovery of the first one, that can lead to brain swelling, which in rare cases can actually be fatal. And there's another 2023 paper that found that if athletes are exposed to enough head impacts from a young age, they're more likely to experience cognitive decline later in life.

The concerns here have been raised over quite a few recent years. I wonder what changes are underway or suggested to mitigate these dangers.

Well, soldier, are plenty of activists who have pushed for outright bans. I guess that's one option. There's also been a greater focus on protective gear, but there's some interesting caveats there. First of all, the scrum caps that many rugby players use, they do protect against cuts to the year, but they don't prevent the brain from being pushed into the skull after a big impact. And that's actually what causes concussions. A lot of players are not aware of this. In fact, coaches refer to something called the Superman effect, in which players feel a false confidence because they've got padded gear on and that can lead to more aggressive play. Now, there's an interesting British startup called raison. In 2022, it started selling a special padded headband called Halos. It's got nine fabric layers, and in response to a non perpendicular hit, they slide over each other. And that friction, the company says, reduces the transmission of rotational forces to the brain.

But instead of relying on these new materials, instead of banning youth contact sports, even being played by the young, could tweaks to the rules be a possibility here?

Yeah, absolutely. So there have been plenty of leagues that have enacted rule changes. One approach is to lower the allowable tackle height. Another is restricting things like body checking and hockey and so forth. One of the problems with an outright tackling ban is it can lead to more injuries later, once a player turns 18 and is exposed to tackling, perhaps without having learned the best tackling techniques. But one of the most promising approaches are simply policies that limit full contact and practice, sometimes just one day a week or a couple days a month. That has reduced the numbers of concussions. Another approach is to group players by physical maturity size, not their ages. They call this biobanding, and it's very promising. But it's fairly new and research on the results is still pretty thin.

Let's turn this into some news one can use as a parent. If you're worried about this, what would you say? Where do you see this going? What are the best ways to deal with these dangers as they stand now?

As for the matter of playing contact sports, parents can easily have their kids take periodic cognitive tests every few weeks during a play season. These are easy to do online, and if there's been any decline in mental acuity, you can stop playing immediately. Another thing to keep in mind is that if kids are prevented from playing contact sports, it's quite likely they're going to find other things to do. There was a very interesting study in Australia recently. They took a look at nearly 9,000 children in Australian and New Zealand hospitals, and they found that those who had suffered the most serious injuries had been involved in recreational activities, biking, horse riding, skateboarding, not contact sports like football and rugby. So I'd say caution is in order. One of the issues here is that injuries, of course, can be counted. What is lost by banning youth contact sports is a lot harder to measure.

Benjamin, thanks very much for joining us.

Thank you. It's always a pleasure.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

Sam.