“Dozens of US lawmakers came together on Tuesday to demand the immediate release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old American psychology student with ‘a severe complex chronic health condition’ who was ‘arbitrarily and wrongfully detained’ by the Israeli military nearly three months ago. Safi was abducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on June 2 as ‘part of a series of raids targeting Birzeit University students that morning that wrongfully detained three other young women: Natalie Abu Diah, Leila Khalil, and Joulan Abu Awad,’ the members of Congress wrote to President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. ‘This targeting of Palestinian students is not an isolated incident but part of what United Nations human rights experts have called a systematic policy to ‘undermine the right to education’.'” (08/25/26)
“At least 47 people were killed and 22 more injured in an overnight gang raid on a neighborhood overlooking Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, the UN said on Monday, prompting anger over the lack of protection from repeated deadly attacks. The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti said estimates could still change. The hillside community of Kenscoff, in a strategic position overlooking routes into the capital, has suffered a dozen attacks by armed gangs since last year, forcing thousands to flee their homes.” (08/25/26)
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has established a minimum reward of $25,000 in cases where people went missing or were killed in Indian Country, part of a broader effort to address high rates of violence affecting Native American communities. The new minimum applies to more than 50 unsolved homicides and missing-person cases in tribal communities. Most of the cases are less than 10 years old, though a dozen have been unsolved for more than two decades, an AP analysis found. Victims’ families and experts are unsure the higher amounts will be enough to get tipsters to come forward, citing people’s fears and distrust of the federal government. … The FBI investigates federal crimes on nearly 200 Native American reservations, along with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.” (08/25/26)
“A federal jury convicted Block Bits co-founder Japheth Dillman on five fraud-related counts after prosecutors showed how nearly $1 million flowed from investors into a cryptocurrency trading operation built around an automated system that never existed. … Dillman and co-founder David Mata pulled in about $960,000 from roughly 22 retail investors between June 2017 and August 2018. The sales pitch was specific: Block Bits Fund I supposedly ran a proprietary bot trading about 100 digital assets across more than 30 exchanges and harvesting price differences between them. That machine was the heart of the pitch, and prosecutors said it simply was not there. The SEC alleged Block Bits’ actual trading amounted to Mata manually placing trades through an exchange account.” (08/24/26)
“President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree opening the way for the Russian state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack. The decree, published on Monday, would allow Moscow to strip owners of physical and financial control over facilities should it be determined that they are failing to secure them or repair damage quickly. The move comes as Ukraine maintains an intense drone campaign against Russian infrastructure. … Fuel and energy facilities, including nuclear power, are included under the legislation as well as industry, communications, transport and logistics, public utilities and other facilities deemed essential to state security and economic stability.” (08/24/26)
“The Supreme Court lifted a judge’s block on President Trump’s executive order adding to mail voting requirements, removing a key roadblock that prevented the policy from going into effect for the midterms. Over the public dissents of the three liberal justices, the high court said Monday that the judge had no authority to block Trump’s directive ahead of the U.S. Postal Service implementing the new ballot standards. ‘Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,’ the court wrote. It allows Trump to move closer to implementing his mail ballot restrictions for November’s contests. But now that the Postal Service announced its final regulation late last week, the states had already begun their new push to block it.” (08/24/26)
“The US trial of a former Libyan intelligence operative accused over the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing has been delayed after fresh evidence came to light, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Defence attorneys requested time to review the material in the case, which spans nearly four decades. Jury selection was due to start on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., for Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, in what will be the first trial held in the US regarding the attack on 21 December 1988. An order issued by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich did not elaborate on the nature of the newly revealed details. … Al-Marimi is charged in the US with building the bomb that destroyed the aircraft, killing 270 people, mostly Americans.” (08/25/26)
“Iran-linked hackers are suspected of forcing a small British power generator offline for four days last month, the latest sign that Tehran-linked cyber activity may be moving from probing vulnerable systems to causing disruptions U.S. officials have long warned about. Iran-linked hackers were behind the outage, according to British security officials who spoke with multiple news outlets. … The British shutdown came weeks after hackers struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota, accessing technology used to remotely monitor and control pumps and other equipment. Minnesota officials have not publicly attributed the attacks. Several news outlets, citing U.S. officials and a leaked industry threat-sharing memo, reported that Iran was the likely culprit.” (08/24/26)
“Lindsay Clancy trial testimony ended abruptly Monday in Plymouth Superior Court when a witness began speaking about Catholic religion and the defense called for a mistrial. Judge William Sullivan denied the mistrial request, but reprimanded the prosecution and sent jurors home for the day. Dr. Kirk Heilbrun was the second witness of the day, and in the afternoon he spoke about a conversation he had with Clancy in April. ‘That was part of her expectation was that she and her children would be together in heaven with God.’ … Sullivan then sent jurors out of the room, and there was a brief recess. When Sullivan and the attorneys returned, the defense called for a mistrial. … When the jury was called back in, the judge told jurors the remarks were ‘immaterial, irrelevant and to be disregarded.'” [editor’s note: If Clancy’s “state of mind” was relevant to the testimony, why would reference to religious conversation be “immaterial?” – TLK] (08/24/26)
“US forces have struck another vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, [murdering] two people accused of trafficking drugs, the US military said on Monday, in the first attack announced in about two months. The death toll in the nearly year-long US campaign of bombing boats allegedly trafficking drugs now exceeds 210 after more than 60 strikes off Latin America’s Caribbean coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. … US President Donald Trump has said the US is in ‘armed conflict’ with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of [murdering] ‘narcoterrorists.'” (08/24/26)
