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Smithsonian museum director to move to Guggenheim: ‘a moment of change’ | US news

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A museum director at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has announced that she is leaving to take over at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Melissa Chiu has been director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall for 12 years. In an interview on Thursday, she insisted that her departure is not related to Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere with the Smithsonian.

“Not at all,” Chiu told the Guardian. “The Guggenheim is an extraordinary institution. It is one of the major museums in our field. It was never part of my decision-making process.”

Chiu becomes the fourth Smithsonian director to leave over the past two years. Stephanie Stebich, who was head of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, was removed in summer 2024 “following years of complaints from staff about her management”, the Washington Post newspaper reported.

Kevin Young, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, stepped down in April 2025 after four years in the role. Shanita Brackett is now the acting director.

Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, resigned in June last year following public pressure from Trump, who claimed on social media he had fired her because she was “a highly partisan person” and “strong supporter” of diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Chiu was born in Darwin, Australia, and spent a decade as director of the Asia Society in New York. Since joining the Hirshhorn in 2014, she has been credited with spearheading digital innovation and expanding the museum’s educational programmes.

She raised nearly $250m and oversaw an expansion of the museum’s permanent collection. Chiu’s legacy will also include a revamped sculpture garden, scheduled to reopen to the public this autumn.

“It has been a moment of change for actually a long time,” the 54-year-old reflected. “I would say dating back to the first days of Covid that, as a museum in the public sphere with a national mission and a mandate to serve the public, we have worked through all of these challenges.

“Each one forced us in a way to develop a set of new skills with which to fulfill our mission, whether it was us being physically closed and pivoting to an online presence, whether it was us coming to terms with inheriting an art history that needed to be broadened with new kinds of acquisitions, whether in media or from artists who were under-recognised before.

“Then we have today where there are different kinds of external pressures and a climate that is very different from even five years ago.”

Among the highlights of Chiu’s exhibition programme was the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, which broke attendance records and was dubbed the “Hamilton’ of the DC art world” by the Washington Post.

“It was a real game changer for the Hirshhorn,” she recalled. “It was a show that I had always dreamed of. She was one of the first artists I met with and I proposed the show and she loved it. Kusama was certainly known at that time but that exhibition that we did in 2017 set a new appreciation for her Infinity Mirror Rooms that did not exist before.”

Chiu is scheduled to depart on 31 August ahead of her move to the Guggenheim’s celebrated Frank Lloyd Wright-designed headquarters on Fifth Avenue. Aaron Seeto, the Hirshhorn’s deputy director, has been appointed to serve as interim director.

Lonnie Bunch, secretary of the Smithsonian, which is the world’s biggest museum, education and research complex, said: “Melissa has guided the Hirshhorn with thoughtfulness and purpose, strengthening its role as a national museum while supporting artists, scholars and the public. We are grateful for her leadership and wish her continued success in this next chapter.”

Trump issued an executive order last year entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”. It accused the Smithsonian of promoting “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive”. In January this year the Smithsonian gave the White House documents on its planned exhibits in response to a demand to share details of what its museums are planning to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence.



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The Papers: 'I'm not Epstein's victim' and 'We see you, Vlad'

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US First Lady Melania Trump is splashed across several of the papers, after she made a surprise White House address on Thursday.



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Middle East crisis live: Trump casts doubt on Iran war ceasefire over continued closure of strait of Hormuz | US-Israel war on Iran

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Summary

Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.

The fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran showed further strain on Friday, a day before delegations from both countries are due to meet in Pakistan, as Donald Trump accused Tehran of breaching promises on the strait of Hormuz and Israel struck Lebanon with attacks that Iran claims violate the truce.

Trump said in a social media post late Thursday that Iran was doing a “very poor job” of allowing oil to go through the strait. “That is not the agreement we have!“

There is no sign Iran is lifting its near-total blockade of the strait, which has caused the worst-ever disruption to global energy supplies. Tehran cited Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon, which included the heaviest strikes of the war on Wednesday, as a key sticking point.

Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz.
Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz. Photograph: Reuters

In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, which Trump announced on Tuesday, just a single oil products tanker and five dry bulk carriers sailed through the strait, which typically carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows and 140 ships a day before the war.

  • Donald Trump has said he is “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by his vice-president JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the war this weekend. Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” the US president said, in line with his administration’s narrative that there’s a disconnect between what Tehran says publicly and privately.

  • Trump also confirmed that he had asked Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to be “more low-key” in Lebanon to help ensure the success of the upcoming US-Iran negotiations in Islamabad. “I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump told NBC News, adding that he believed Israel was “scaling back” its operations in Lebanon.

  • Netanyahu said he had instructed his cabinet to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon aimed at disarming Hezbollah – all the while insisting that “there is no ceasefire” in Lebanon and that Israel will “continue to strike Hezbollah with force”.

  • Israel has since launched a fresh wave of strikes against what it called “Hezbollah launch sites” in Lebanon, after the IDF earlier ordered people to flee Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs. Later in the day, Hezbollah said it had fired a rocket salvo towards northern Israeli settlements.

  • While Israel continues to insist that the war will go on and “talks will be held under fire”, Lebanon is demanding a ceasefire before direct negotiations can begin. Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, said this was “the only solution”. Lebanon is also insisting that it needs the US as a mediator and guarantor of any agreement. Those talks will take place next week, hosted by the US state department in Washington.

  • Iran’s ⁠president ⁠Masoud Pezeshkian said ⁠Israeli strikes on ⁠Lebanon violate the ceasefire agreement and would render ‌negotiations meaningless, adding that Iran would not abandon the Lebanese people.

  • The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Lebanon forms “an inseparable part of the ceasefire” deal. In a post on X, he said “there is no room for denial and backtracking”.

  • Keir Starmer also said that Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon “shouldn’t be happening”. The British prime minister also dismissed an argument put forward by US vice-president JD Vance on Wednesday that there had been “a legitimate misunderstanding”, saying the issue “isn’t a technical one of whether it’s a breach of the agreement or not”. It is “a matter of principles as far as I’m concerned”, Starmer said.

  • A statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said Iran will take management of the strait of Hormuz into a new phase, but did not elaborate on what that would be. In the statement, read out on state tv, he also said Iran remains determined to “take revenge” for his father, who was assassinated on the first day of the war, and all those killed in the war. “We will certainly demand compensation for each and every damage inflicted, and the blood price of the martyrs and the compensation for the wounded of this war,” he said.

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Key events

Donald Trump has said that right wing influencers Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones are “not ‘MAGA,’ they’re losers”.

The four had been reliable supporters of Trump for most of his presidency, but in recent weeks have spoken out over their opposition to the war in Iran.

In a long post on his Truth Social platform, the president launched highly personal attacks on the four, who are among the most influential voices in the right wing media ecosystem.

double quotation markAs President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs and, after a few times, they go ‘nasty’.”

Tucker Carlson campaigning in 2024 with Donald Trump. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

The war on Iran has widened the cracks in Trump’s already shaky Maga movement, with many commentators and supporters saying that such an operation is a betrayal of Trump’s promise to put America First and extradite the US from messy foreign conflicts.

Carlson on Monday called the president’s rhetoric toward Iran, including an expletive-filled threat on Easter, “vile” on “every level.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked on his Info Wars show: “How do we 25th Amendment his ass?” Former Fox News host and popular conservative media personality Megyn Kelly said the recent ceasefire with Iran “sounds very much like surrender,” but conceded that she supported it.

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Want to help garden birds? Don’t feed them in warmer months, says RSPB

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The industry body, UK Pet Food, estimates that we spend some £380 million a year on bird food. Separate figures suggest that amounts to more than 150,000 tonnes annually – enough to sustain three times the breeding populations of the ten commonest garden species if they relied on it alone all year round.



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