The president of Lithuania on Friday visited swampland near his country’s border with Belarus, saying he was “hoping for a miracle” as military and civilian rescue crews worked frantically to extract a heavy United States Army vehicle carrying four American soldiers that disappeared in the waterlogged forest area on Tuesday.

The American vehicle, an M88 Hercules, went missing during a military training exercise and was found on Wednesday submerged in a muddy bog. The soldiers have not been found, and efforts to reach the vehicle have been hampered by deep mud and water from a nearby lake.

A Lithuanian official involved in the rescue mission who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter said tracks in the ground indicated that the American vehicle had veered off a sandy path toward a small pond and then turned abruptly into a wooded area that ended up being a swamp. It seemed to have sunk quickly, the person said, but it was unclear what happened to the crew.

“Although many skeptics would probably say that there is nothing to hope for in these circumstances, I want to hope,” President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania said during a visit to the site on Friday. “I am still hoping for a miracle,” he added.

The missing soldiers, from the First Brigade, Third Infantry Division, were training near Pabrade, a city in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia and a stalwart supporter of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Both Belarus and Russia have frequently criticized Lithuania, a member of NATO that used to be part of the Soviet Union, for hosting American and other allied troops.

Amid rising alarm in Lithuania and other formerly communist countries in Eastern Europe that President Trump will weaken the NATO alliance, frantic joint efforts to recover the missing U.S. soldiers by Lithuanian and American rescue crews have showcased what Mr. Nauseda on Friday said was the value of allies acting together. Poland, Lithuania’s neighbor and another member of NATO, has also sent military engineers to help.

“Such minutes, such circumstances,” the Lithuanian president said “only confirm how strong we are when we are together, when we are in the NATO alliance and feel the support of our friends.”

Mr. Trump and his senior officials have made it clear in recent weeks that the security of Europe is no longer the first priority of the United States, which wants to concentrate resources on its own border and the Indo-Pacific, where China has become a peer rival.

Mr. Trump suggested this month that Washington might not protect NATO members that he believed were not paying enough for their own defense, calling it “common sense.”

Whether the disaster in Lithuania will reinforce the administration’s view that the United States is paying too high a price to defend Europe or help convince it that European allies are pulling their weight remains to be seen.

The U.S. military, in a statement issued on Thursday, praised Lithuania for its efforts to find the missing soldiers.

“We are incredibly appreciative of the dedicated and professional efforts of our Lithuanian allies in ensuring the safety of U.S. personnel,” said Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, the commanding general of First Armored Division. “They have worked tirelessly alongside us over the last 48 hours and we continue to be grateful for their support.”

Also visiting the site on Friday was the United States ambassador to Lithuania, Kara C. McDonald, who praised Lithuania, which has rushed divers, military engineers and civilian rescue crews to find and work to extract the sunken American military vehicle.

“This place is a symbol of our alliance and of working hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, in the search for our missing soldiers,” the ambassador said, describing Lithuania as an exemplary U.S. ally.

Ms. McDonald said a team of American Army engineers had arrived on Thursday night and would be assisted in the rescue operation by Navy engineers who were expected to arrive on Friday afternoon.

The submerged M88 Hercules, essentially a giant armored tow truck, disappeared on Tuesday after being sent to extract another Army vehicle that had become disabled during the training exercise, according to the military.

“Due to the terrain, this is an incredibly complex engineering effort,” Maj. Robin Bruce, a 1st Armored Division engineer, said in the Army statement. Major Bruce added, “The team is exploring every available option to speed up this process.”

Lithuania’s defense minister, Dovilė Sakaliene, told local news media that the country’s fire and rescue service had worked overnight to pump out water from the swamp but had not uncovered the vehicle, which she said was buried at least five yards beneath the surface. She added that a large dredger would join the effort later on Friday.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar on Friday, sending shock waves across Southeast Asia and leaving a trail of death and destruction.

The military junta in Myanmar said that 144 people had died and 732 had been injured. The death toll there is expected to rise, with many injured arriving at hospitals in the country’s second-largest city, Mandalay.

The earthquake collapsed a skyscraper under construction in Bangkok, killing at least seven people and leaving dozens missing. It also shook buildings in China and rattled bridges and homes as far away as Vietnam.

Myanmar is in the throes of a civil war that has left nearly 20 million people without proper food and shelter. Censorship imposed by its military government has limited the spread of information from the heart of the disaster, even as the scale of damage in Thailand and other countries is slowly becoming clear.

Where was the epicenter?

The quake struck near Mandalay, in central Myanmar, at roughly 12:50 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Approximately 12 minutes later, an aftershock with a magnitude of 6.4 hit the same area.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 is considered major. The magnitude of the aftershock is categorized as strong and likely to cause damage, particularly in densely populated areas, according to the agency.

Central Myanmar, where large plates of the Earth’s crust are in motion, is prone to powerful earthquakes. The country lies on the eastern end of the Alpide Belt, one world’s most active zones of seismic activity. Three quakes of magnitude 7.7 or greater have struck in or near Myanmar in the last century, according to a U.S.G.S. database, with the most recent in 1988.

The earthquake on Friday struck at a relatively shallow depth of six miles, meaning it was likely to cause more violent shaking. That shaking was felt as far away as Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, more than 800 miles away from the epicenter.

Which countries have been affected?

Despite the limited information from the authorities in Myanmar, the earthquake was almost certainly most destructive there. The city of Mandalay, the largest major city near the epicenter, has an estimated population of 1.5 million people.

Neighboring Thailand also felt the might of the earthquake, particularly in Bangkok, where around 11 million people live in the metropolitan area. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra declared the city an “area of emergency,” asking residents to evacuate from tall buildings to avoid aftershocks.

In China, news media outlets in Yunnan Province, neighboring Myanmar, reported damage to buildings in the busy border city of Ruili.

The shaking was also felt in Bangladesh, to Myanmar’s west, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

What is the death toll, and what damage has been caused?

The toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble and injured people make their way to hospitals. Myanmar’s military government said that 144 people had been killed and 732 injured, but the full extent of the toll was hard to assess in a country that has largely been isolated from the rest of the world.

In Mandalay, video showed that the Ava Bridge, originally built by the British in the 1930s, had partly collapsed, according to footage verified by The New York Times. But heavy censorship enforced by Myanmar’s military government has made it hard to see the full extent of the damage.

In Thailand, at least seven people died and dozens were missing when a skyscraper that had been under construction collapsed in Bangkok. At least 20 people were trapped in an elevator shaft, an official said, and it was unclear if they were still alive. The city’s elevated train service was shut down and people fled from tall buildings after the city was placed in a state of emergency.

Chinese state media reported that an unspecified number of people were injured, with houses and buildings damaged in the city of Ruili.

What aid is available?

In Myanmar, the areas worst hit are in the center of the country, which are controlled by the military junta. When disasters have struck the past, like Cyclone Mocha in 2023 and Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the military government avoided asking for international assistance and throttled aid in areas not under its control.

After the powerful earthquake on Friday, the junta made a rare appeal for help. The plea signaled that the authorities were bracing for a high death toll.

“We will cooperate with them to ensure the best care for the victims,” Gen. Zaw Min Tun, Myanmar’s military spokesman, said after the government declared a state of emergency in six regions.

Areas of the country that are controlled by rebel forces are farther from the epicenter of the quake. These areas appear to be relatively unscathed, but information in these often isolated areas may be slow to emerge.

The World Health Organization said that it was looking at sending trauma supplies to support Myanmar. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that teams in the country were assessing the situation.

Reporting was contributed by Sui-Lee Wee, John Yoon, Keith Bradsher, John Keefe, Richard C. Paddock, Muktita Suhartono, Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur.

In the parking lot of Mandalay General Hospital, dozens of patients — many with their heads and arms bandaged — were lined up on stretchers, or cardboard, in 100-degree heat. Many more lay directly on the concrete.

“More injured people keep arriving, but we do not have enough doctors and nurses,” said Dr. Kyaw Zin, a surgeon at the hospital. “The cotton swabs have almost run out.”

He said the hospital was so jammed with injured people after the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday that “there is no space to stand.” Phone lines were down so he has not been able to contact his parents. “I’m very worried about my parents,” he added. “But I can’t go back home yet. I have to save lives here first.”

Even before the quake, the health care system in Myanmar had been pushed to its limits. The military junta that has led the country since a 2021 coup has cracked down on doctors and nurses, who have been at the forefront of a nationwide civil disobedience movement that has opposed the regime. Myanmar is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a health worker, according to New York-based Physicians for Human Rights.

Dr. Kyaw Zin said that he was about to start surgery when the earthquake struck. Everybody, including patients, ran outside.

On Friday afternoon, ambulance sirens shrieked. The injured kept coming. Nurses checked on patients in the parking lot, some of whom were hooked up to intravenous drips. People moaned for help. The smell of blood hung in the stifling heat.

The junta said it did not have the full death toll. Damage to infrastructure could hinder access to regions that have already been struggling amid a bloody civil war. The epicenter of the earthquake, the Sagaing region, has been a focus of resistance to military rule.

The World Health Organization said information was still hard to get because of aftershocks and disruptions to communications systems. The agency added that it was looking to send trauma supplies from its logistics hubs to support Myanmar.

Just Stop Oil, the British environmental activist group known for attention-grabbing protests — including throwing tomato soup at famous artworks and spraying orange powder on Stonehenge — said it was ending such actions after a final protest in London next month.

The group said on Thursday that it had achieved its primary goal of preventing new oil and gas licensing in Britain, and would soon be regrouping to plan its next phase of actions.

“We achieved what we set out to achieve,” James Skeet, a spokesman for the group, said in an interview.

Here’s what to know.

The activists are known for attention-grabbing protests.

Just Stop Oil activists made headlines beginning in 2022 for: throwing tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” gluing themselves to John Constable’s “The Hay Wain,” and smashing the glass that protected Diego Velázquez’s “Rokeby Venus.”

The group has said that it used the tactics to convey the urgency of the climate crisis, and draw attention to the political and social changes needed to tackle it. The group has noted that its actions have not damaged the masterpieces, and that the works were specifically chosen because they were protected by glass. But critics have argued that some of the works’ centuries-old frames were harmed.

A wave of similar protest actions began in Paris when a man smeared cake on the Mona Lisa, and others occurred in Germany, Italy and the United States.

Just Stop Oil, which also disrupted sporting events, awards shows and live theater, as well as spraying the monoliths at Stonehenge with orange powder, grew out of Extinction Rebellion, a British environmentalist group that promoted nonviolent protests to push governments to address the climate crisis.

Officials condemned the stunts, and some activists got jail time.

Politicians, museum managers and many others on social media have condemned the group’s actions. In Britain, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called Just Stop Oil “a disgrace,” and Keir Starmer, the current leader, called the group “pathetic” after its Stonehenge protest.

Many of the activists who participated in the 2022 protests at the National Gallery in London were arrested, and some were sentenced to jail time. A judge sentenced two of the activists who threw soup at the “Sunflowers” painting to about two years in jail in 2024, and a protester who glued himself to the frame of another van Gogh work was sentenced to three weeks in prison in 2022. The case of the activists involved in the Stonehenge protests is ongoing.

The activists who threw soup at “Sunflowers” had their sentences upheld this month. But six activists who were convicted of conspiracy for blocking a major highway near London in 2022 during a Just Stop Oil protest had their sentences reduced.

Mr. Skeet said 15 people were currently in prison related to Just Stop Oil protests and 16 others were facing sentencing in the coming months.

The museum campaign also had its defenders. They argued that the actions drew needed attention to the climate crisis. It also sparked a debate about whether vandalizing art should be a vehicle for protest.

They met their goal: a ban on new licenses for oil and gas.

Mr. Skeet, the group’s spokesman, said Just Stop Oil’s tactics were narrowly focused on pushing for an end to new oil and gas licensing in Britain. The Labour Party, which swept into power last year, committed to a ban on new licensees for oil and gas, and doubled down on its pledge this month.

The group’s final action will take place in London on April 26, but the organization made clear on its website that it will be “a lower-risk action, and we won’t be pushing for arrest.”

Mr. Skeet added: “The idea around the strategy was to aim for a winnable demand and basically sort of prove the effectiveness of the tactics, essentially. We’ve done so. So now it’s on to moving on to the next thing.”

What’s next for the group?

“My first priority is to take a break,” Mr. Skeet said. He said the last few years have exhausted many of the members.

Mr. Skeet also said that the group’s style of protesting has become increasingly criminalized since the organization first began. In 2023, a new law, the Public Order Act, gave the police in England and Wales more power to detain and charge protesters. Mr. Skeet said the group would need to “assess the lay of the land” before regrouping for further action.

Torn, folded, stitched and bound into a book of property records from the 1500s, rare tales of Merlin shapeshifting into King Arthur’s court and Sir Gawain gaining power from the sun had gone unnoticed for centuries, stacked among the records of an English manor and then among the millions of volumes of a university library.

At least until an archivist took another look, setting off a yearslong project to identify and then reassemble the medieval manuscript, which someone in Tudor England had taken apart and used to help hold together a ledger.

The manuscript turned out to be a priceless find: extremely rare stories of Arthurian romance, copied by a scribe between 1275 and 1315, and part of the “Suite Vulgate du Merlin,” an Old French sequel to the start of the Arthur legend. Cambridge University researchers announced their findings this week and published a digitized version of the manuscript online.

There are fewer than 40 copies of the Suite Vulgate sequel known to exist, and no two are exactly the same.

“Each manuscript copy of a medieval text, handwritten by a scribe, is going to be changed little by little,” said Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, the French specialist at the university library. “As the copies come along, each scribe imposes his own taste.”

The manuscript tells two stories.

The first is about Sir Gawain, nephew of King Arthur, whose rivals include both rebellious barons at home and pagan Saxons invading from abroad. Among the intransigent nobles is Gawain’s own father, and Gawain sides with Arthur to defeat him. Then it’s on to the Saxons.

Wielding Excalibur, the sword of myth, Gawain grows more powerful as the sun rises, reaching peak strength at midday. His victory for Arthur’s side is no less satisfying for being predictable.

In the second episode, Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, are presiding over a feast when it is interrupted by a mysterious visitor, a blind harpist, guided into court by a white dog. Charmed by his music, Arthur agrees to the strange man’s even stranger request: to bear the king’s standard on the battlefield — a seemingly fatal wish.

The harpist is Merlin, disguised, though the members of court realize this only long afterward. “The standard, thanks to Merlin’s magic, can become this magical dragon who blows fire on the battlefield,” Dr. Fabry-Tehranchi said.

At the time of its creation, the manuscript was “a luxury item,” she added, most likely imported to England by aristocrats familiar with Old French as the Arthurian romances grew in popularity. But as the stories were translated into English, the value of such manuscripts fell.

Unless one had a bunch of deeds or the like lying around and in need of a little binding. That may explain how someone at Huntingfield Manor in Suffolk in the 16th century settled on the old parchment as a bit of raw material to strengthen a ledger.

The manor’s collection came to Cambridge in the 1970s, but it was only in 2019 that an archivist realized that the hidden manuscript deserved a closer look. The painstaking process wound up taking years, given that the fragile, battered manuscript had been recycled inside a book that was itself centuries old.

“We really needed to go into the nooks and crannies of this object,” Dr. Fabry-Tehranchi said.

Researchers used multispectral imaging, which relies on different wavelengths of light like ultraviolet and infrared, to reveal details in the manuscript that the naked eye could not spot. With help from their colleagues in the zoology department, they also employed a CT scanner usually used for fossils to uncover the parchment’s layers without physically dismantling the book.

The restorers also used mirrors, magnets, prisms and other tools to take hundreds of photographs of parts of the manuscript that were hidden under folds or stitched into the binding. The result was a sort of medieval, Old French jigsaw puzzle that had to be assembled into a legible text.

“This project is fabulous primarily for its use of new technology to recover the material culture of the past, which may survive physically but remain inaccessible for a variety of reasons,” said Hannah Weaver, a professor of medieval literature at Columbia University, who was not involved in the work.

It was not just the innovative use of imaging, Dr. Weaver said. It was what came next, and what it might mean for other researchers.

“It was the digital unfolding that really astonished me,” she said. “I can’t wait to see that new technique applied on other tricky in-situ manuscripts.”

Dr. Fabry-Tehranchi expressed a similar hope.

“There are still things to be discovered,” she said.