killed

The deaths on board the Egyptian-owned Tihamah mark first shipping deaths linked to Houthis since the US-Israel war on Iran began.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government has accused the Houthi rebel group of killing at least six people and wounding 10 others in a double-tap strike on a cargo vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

The attack on the Egyptian-owned Tihamah on Tuesday marks the first shipping deaths linked to the Iran-aligned Houthis since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28.

Yemen’s Transport Ministry said three Pakistani nationals and one Indonesian national were killed after the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles at the commercial ship, sparking a fire and causing “significant damage” to the vessel.

Yemen’s coastguard said in a separate statement that the Houthis fired another missile at the ship as rescue personnel were evacuating the dead and wounded.

“The attack struck the site of the rescue operation and resulted in deaths and injuries among the forces participating in the response operation,” the coastguard said.

At least two troops were killed in the second strike.

Ten people were wounded in total, including seven crew members, it added.

Houthi-Saudi truce unravels

Yemen’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and called on the international community “to move from condemnation to effective and decisive action” against the Houthis.

There was no official comment from the Houthis.

But the Houthi-run news agency Saba reported that the ‌group had attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in Bab al-Mandeb. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, the US military said it fired on a ship attempting to break its blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman. The US Central Command said a Navy helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles at the Panama-flagged Vela Nova cargo vessel, but did not say if any crew members were wounded.

The escalation in Yemen follows the collapse of a years-long truce in the country’s civil war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government.

The breakdown of the United Nations-backed 2022 truce followed a Saudi air strike on the runway of Sanaa airport on July 13, preventing the landing of an Iranian flight carrying a high-ranking Houthi delegation.

The Houthis then attacked the Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia and announced a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. They have also attacked Saudi vessels as well as oil facilities in the kingdom, adding further disruption to the global economy.

The Saudi-led coalition, in turn, has struck Houthi-controlled Hodeidah and Kamaran, Yemen’s largest island in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have also launched attacks on government-held areas in Yemen, including the port city of al-Makha (Mocha) on the Red Sea and the central city of Marib, killing dozens of troops and civilians.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government on Tuesday said the Houthis launched 10 missiles and four drones during a series of further attacks on sites on the country’s western coast.

The Houthis said they had launched ballistic missile and drone attacks “targeting Saudi military buildups, weapons depots and command posts” in al-Makha and the central Marib province.

The UN has called for restraint, saying the renewed hostilities risk “drawing the country into a broader regional confrontation, with devastating consequences for its people”.

Three Colombian tourists from same family are among the victims of Saturday’s crash on mountainside forest of Tijuca National Park.

At least four people have been killed in a helicopter crash in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, according to a statement from the Colombian consul in the country.

Saturday’s crash involved a pilot and three Colombian women who were members of the same family.

They were reportedly on a sightseeing flight over Tijuca National Park, a densely forested, mountainous area on the edge of the city.

In the aftermath of the crash, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere called for more oversight of helicopter flights, a popular tourist activity. He even suggested such flights could be suspended “for a week or two”, as new safety measures are implemented.

“My solidarity to the families of the victims of the helicopter accident that happened today near Vista Chinesa within the Tijuca National Park,” Cavaliere said in a social media post.

He added that he had been in contact with Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency, ANAC.

“City Hall has requested that ANAC take immediate action to intensify oversight and ensure safety in helicopter flights that are circulating with increasing frequency in our city,” Cavaliere explained.

“We place the entire apparatus of City Hall at the disposal of ANAC to support the measures and actions that may be necessary.”

The crash took place near Vista Chinesa, a lookout point crowned by a small bamboo pagoda. Tijuca National Park is a top destination in Rio de Janeiro, famous for its Christ the Redeemer statue and sweeping vistas of the coastal city.

Diana Paez, the Colombian consul general in Rio de Janeiro, told the news agency AFP that the three women on Saturday’s flight were part of a family that had travelled to the city to celebrate a girl’s 15th birthday.

The group of six had split up since the helicopter could only fit three people. The girl’s grandmother, aunt and cousin died in the crash.

Helicopter rides have become a popular way for tourists to see the city and its various monuments from above, a practice that has attracted growing concern over safety.

Six people were recently killed when two helicopters collided in midair over the city. That incident took place over the western suburb of Recreio dos Bandeirantes on June 14.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — Overnight Russian attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed at least 4 people, one of which was a 3-year-old child, officials said Saturday.

Two of boy’s grandparents were also killed in the strike from Russian drones in the Brovary district of the Kyiv region, northeast of the capital city. Four others — the boy’s 15-year-old brother, his parents and a neighbor — were injured as they tried to help the three. They were all hospitalized.

In Kyiv, the city’s military administration said one other person was killed and four others wounded.

Ukraine‘s air force reported that it had downed or intercepted 135 of 151 drones launched by Russia overnight. The attack also involved six ballistic missiles and other guided missiles, CBS News reported.

“Last night, Russia killed three people in Pukhivka, Kyiv region, with drone strikes — a grandfather, a grandmother and their grandson. The boy was only 3 years old,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on X. “Four more people were hospitalized: the child’s parents, his 15-year-old brother and a neighbor who came to the family’s aid and was wounded in a double-tap strike. The victims suffered thermal burns and shrapnel wounds. My condolences. It was an ordinary residential building. The Russians could not have been unaware of this. There was also a strike involving six ballistic missiles against civilian infrastructure in Kyiv. As of now, one person has been reported dead. My condolences to the family and loved ones. The Donetsk, Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Poltava regions also came under attack.”

Zelensky went on to reiterate that Ukraine needs more support, including stronger sanctions on Russia and anti-ballistic missile weapons.

The Ukrainian president is on an official visit to Serbia, a close ally of Russia. It’s a first for Zelensky, and the two countries agreed to work toward closer economic ties. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said his country will support Ukraine’s territorial integrity with “no buts” during a joint press conference, The Kyiv Post reported. Serbia is trying to join the European Union.

Zelensky has been trying to get the United States to license its Patriot interceptor missiles, but President Donald Trump has hesitated.

The U.S. Senate passed a bill Friday that imposes new sanctions on Russia and Iran. The bill was once championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. On Friday, the Senate voted 86 to 11 in favor of passing The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

A drone also entered Bulgarian airspace Saturday after crossing from Romania and exploded near an international gas pipeline, the BBC reported Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev said. He said there was a “significant” amount of explosives aboard the drone, but that there were no casualties or reports of damage. It’s not clear where the drone originated.

Health Minister Qassem Bahaibah says 14 injured, accuses group of targeting residential areas and displacement camps.

At least two civilians have been killed and 14 injured in the latest Houthi attack on the Yemeni government-held city of Marib, according to the internationally recognised government.

Qassem Bahaibah, Yemen’s health minister, denounced the Iran-aligned Houthis as a “terrorist militia” in a post on X on Friday, adding that the toll of casualties was preliminary.

Bahaibah said authorities had instructed all health facilities to raise their levels of alert and preparedness.

Friday’s attacks came the day after the Houthis killed at least 30 government soldiers in Hadramout and Marib provinces.

The government condemned Friday’s attack “in the strongest terms”, in a media statement issued by the Ministry of Public Health and Population.

“The deliberate targeting of safe residential neighbourhoods and camps of displaced people, and the resulting casualties among unarmed civilians, constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and of all humanitarian values and covenants,” it said.

“It places the international community and humanitarian and human-rights organisations before their responsibilities, and calls for a serious and urgent stance that protects civilians and puts an end to their continued targeting.”

Marib hosts the largest number of displaced families in Yemen, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Earlier on Friday, the Yemeni Defence Ministry said its forces had shot down several Houthi drones over Marib.

The Houthis did not immediately comment on the government’s statements.

The attacks came amid intermittent fighting on several front lines across Yemen since early July that has resulted in dozens of casualties on both sides.

The Houthis have also increased attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, following a sharp rise in tensions triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The Saudi-led coalition, which supports Yemen’s internationally recognised government, said on Friday that 11 people, including a four-year-old, were injured in a Houthi attack on the city of Najran in southwestern Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

Escalating tensions between the Houthis and Riyadh come as Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed a joint defence pact on Friday, stating that an attack on any of the three countries would be treated as an attack on all.

The Iran-backed Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014. Since then, they have been fighting the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government in the port city of Aden.

At least eight people, including students and teachers, were killed and 15 others injured after a student opened fire inside a school in Thailand. Police said the gunman later died by suicide.

A search team has retrieved the remains of renowned climber Nirmal Purja and several members of his team after they were killed in an avalanche on Broad Peak, the world’s 12th-highest mountain located in Pakistan.

SC Villa captain and Ugandan international David Owori was found unconscious by passers-by, but later pronounced dead.

Uganda international ‌David Owori, captain of one of the country’s ⁠biggest football clubs, ⁠has died after an assault in the capital Kampala, police said.

The 28-year-old, who was captain of Uganda’s record-breaking champions SC Villa, was ⁠critically injured by unidentified assailants in a suburb of Kampala on Tuesday, police spokesperson Racheal Kawala said.

His death comes only weeks after the killing of Rugby international Sydney Gongodyo in the Ugandan capital.

Owori was found unconscious ⁠by passers-by, who took him to a nearby hospital. He was transferred to another hospital where he was later pronounced dead, Kawala said.

“David was not just a footballer. He was both a leader ‌and an inspiration to a generation. As Captain of SC Villa, he led with courage, humility and passion. In the Uganda Cranes jersey, he carried the hopes of a nation,” the Federation of Uganda Football Associations said in a statement.

Crime is rampant in the capital of the East ⁠African country and many Ugandans expressed outrage ⁠at his death on X. They also condemned what some said was the inability of the authorities to tackle crime.

Owori’s death follows that of Gongodyo’s, who in June died after he was assaulted by a ⁠mob in Kampala after he was apparently ⁠mistaken for a thief, according to police.

“Sadly, Ugandan sport has been hit with many such tragedies lately, and we hope for justice and a lasting solution,” ‌the state-run National Council of Sports Uganda said.

Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa asked authorities to address the wider security challenges in ‌the ‌country, according to a statement on parliament’s website.

SC Villa extended a 20-year wait for the Uganda league title last season, when Owori lifted the trophy as captain.

It was their record-extending 17th Uganda league crown.

Kamala Harris was distraught as she stood before an audience one morning in July 2016. In the previous three days, violence involving police had rattled the nation.

Officers had shot and killed one black man in Baton Rouge, La., and another in his car outside Minneapolis as his horrified girlfriend and her toddler watched. At a protest against those shootings, a sniper had killed five Dallas police officers.

“I have to tell you, my heart is breaking,” Harris said at a meeting on racial bias in policing. Her voice wavered.

“As a prosecutor, my heart is breaking. As the top law enforcement officer in this state. And as a black woman.”

Harris, then California attorney general, paid tribute to officers whose families pray they stay out of danger. She also said she’d never known a black man who wasn’t racially profiled or unfairly stopped.

It was an unusually frank acknowledgment of the forces pulling her in opposite directions in the two years since police killings of black men had set off demonstrations across the country and fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Seeking to reconcile the competing demands of police and civil rights groups, Harris tried to avoid inflaming either side. That relatively safe approach has left her open to criticism that she could have done more to lead California’s efforts to limit police use of lethal force.

Harris did make tangible advances in police accountability. She focused on programs inside the attorney general’s office, drawing praise from civil rights advocates and scant resistance from law enforcement.

At the same time, Harris, the state’s first black attorney general, steered clear of the legislative brawls over bills on policing, including what became a groundbreaking law to curb racial profiling. Harris also rejected pleas by civil rights activists to investigate deadly police shootings of young black men in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“She is maybe a modest reformer, and that’s fine,” said Anne Weills, an Oakland civil rights attorney. “But I don’t think that means she is particularly progressive. She doesn’t look at the big picture about how to make structural change.”

On July 8, 2016, the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board met to begin its work under Assembly Bill 953, focusing on eliminating racial and identity profiling in law enforcement.

For months, Harris has been fending off accusations, most recently in a debate Wednesday, that she did too little to fight racial bias in the criminal justice system.

Harris told The Times she was frustrated by the slow pace of change, but pointed to progress made during her tenure.

“You’d be hard pressed to find any other attorney general in America who at that time was doing the kind of transformative work that we did,” Harris said.

Harris had been attorney general for nearly four years when a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man in Ferguson, Mo. The shooting on Aug. 9, 2014, reshaped the politics of race and law enforcement in America.

Video of Brown’s body, left face down in the street in a pool of blood for four hours, went viral on social media. Over the next several days, images of white cops in military vehicles firing tear gas and rubber bullets at mainly black protesters came to symbolize police violence against African Americans.

Police shootings became major news in the months that followed as they were captured in smartphone videos that spread nationwide.

“The death rate from police use of lethal force has been stable for a long time,” said Franklin Zimring, a criminologist and law professor at UC Berkeley. “What happened with Ferguson … was people started to notice that these things kept happening.”

Civil rights groups pressed for new limits on police power. Law enforcement, feeling besieged, fought many of the proposals.

For Harris, the timing was difficult. Police unions had overwhelmingly opposed her when she first ran for the job in 2010, in part because she declined to pursue the death penalty against the killer of a San Francisco police officer, Isaac Espinoza, when she was the San Francisco district attorney. She labored hard to secure their overwhelming support in her run for reelection.

“She had to walk a fine tightrope,” said Brian Marvel, a San Diego police officer and president of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, the state’s top police advocacy group.

But civil rights advocates also set high expectations.

“We always hope that because you look like us, you talk like us, you walk like us, you come from where we come from — that you’re not just reading about this in the news. You know there is a war being waged against black bodies,” said Cat Brooks, an Oakland activist who thought Harris fell short.

Police advance through tear gas toward demonstrators protesting the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

California lawmakers put police accountability high on their agenda after Ferguson. Among the most contentious bills was one pushed by civil rights organizations to collect data on the race of everyone stopped by police statewide to shed light on racial profiling.

Police groups — still a powerful political force in a state that has only recently tempered its strict law-and-order culture — resisted the bill, arguing it would be too burdensome.

Harris declined to take a position. After Jerry Brown, then governor, signed the bill into law, Harris won credit from civil rights groups for drafting strong rules putting it into effect.

Bill Lockyer, a former state attorney general, said Harris avoided battles in the Capitol, just a few blocks from her Sacramento office, and concentrated instead on running her own agency.

“I saw it as a general reluctance to have an active legislative role,” said Lockyer, a onetime state Senate leader who remained closely engaged in lawmaking as attorney general.

Daniel Suvor, Harris’ chief policy advisor at the time, said her preference was “to work directly with law enforcement and the civil rights community to get things done as opposed to engaging in superfluous dialogue.”

Harris’ authority over police practices was limited. In a state with nearly 80,000 police officers, the attorney general employed only about 300 — special agents who investigate healthcare fraud, gun violations and drug crimes. By November 2015, all agents in the field were equipped, on Harris’ order, with body-worn cameras.

Some advocates were seeking mandatory body cameras for nearly every officer in California. They tried unsuccessfully to pass a bill to create a statewide standard for their use. Harris spurned the proposal, saying she opposed a “one-size-fits-all approach.”

Another Harris project was anti-bias training for law enforcement agencies statewide, which proved popular. More than two dozen agencies participated in the first course. It remains part of the state’s formal officer training.

Harris’ signature achievement from this period was Open Justice, an online portal that, for the first time, made a wide array of criminal justice data available to the public, including tallies of deaths and injuries in police custody.

“She saw there was so much emotion and anecdote around the criminal justice reform conversation, and she wanted to inject data, facts and evidence into the conversation,” Suvor said.

It was the rare initiative embraced by both police and reform advocates.

“That was really, really helpful to the movement, because there was no place that we could look at in-custody deaths at the hands of law enforcement prior to that,” said Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter organizer who chairs Cal State L.A.’s Pan-African studies department.

Harris was less successful in dodging political fallout when it came to calls for state investigations of high-profile shootings. Civil rights advocates viewed local prosecutors as inherently compromised in cases against police they worked closely with every day.

State intervention in local cases was a fraught issue for Harris. In 2004, Lockyer, then attorney general, had second-guessed her refusal to seek the death penalty for the killer of Espinoza, opening his own investigation into her decision. (He ultimately sided with Harris.)

“There’s no question that has influenced and did influence my perspective on this,” Harris said, adding she believed local officials are best held accountable by voters.

Community activists urged Harris to investigate two high-profile police shootings in California — Ezell Ford’s death in Los Angeles in 2014 and the 2015 killing of Mario Woods in San Francisco — but she demurred, saying she lacked legal grounds to overrule local prosecutors.

“I wouldn’t even say disappointed is a strong enough word for how we felt about how she did as attorney general,” said Kim McGill, an organizer with the Youth Justice Coalition.

Tritobia Ford, at left, mother of Ezell Ford, speaks in January 2017; protesters demonstrate against the shooting of Mario Woods in December 2015

(Los Angeles Times / Associated Press)

Critics suspected a political motive behind Harris’ stand against state probes of the L.A. and San Francisco police shootings.

“When she was running for attorney general, she was already running for president,” Weills said. “It’s a very calculated process. For her to start to alienate the whole law enforcement establishment by taking on these investigations … it might have destroyed her career.”

A 2015 bill, which failed to pass, would have required the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to take on cases involving police use of deadly force. Harris decline to support it.

Yet Harris did not always take a hard line against state probes of local police misconduct. She privately asked the governor for money to create teams of prosecutors to conduct such investigations in jurisdictions that consented to them. Brown refused, she told The Times.

After she won election to the U.S. Senate, and in her final days as attorney general, Harris opened civil rights investigations into the Kern County Sheriff’s Office and the Bakersfield Police Department, which remain ongoing under her successor, Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra.

Now, as she runs for president, Harris has more forcefully backed independent investigations of police wrongdoing. She has promised the U.S. Justice Department would pursue more robust oversight of racial bias in police departments nationwide. She has also vowed to push legislation to end racial profiling.

A funeral was held for the victims of last week’s US strike on Iran’s Qeshm Island, where a couple and their two-year-old child were killed. Iran’s chief negotiator and parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, vowed the US would “pay the price” for their deaths.

More than 100 Palestinians whose bodies were trapped beneath rubble for nearly three years have been laid to rest in Gaza City, in one of the largest mass funerals held in the enclave since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began.

Thousands of people gathered on Tuesday to bury the remains of 112 members of the Abu Sharia and al-Hasayna families after rescue teams recovered their bodies from the site of a November 2023 Israeli attack in the Sabra neighbourhood.

According to Palestinian officials, the November 22, 2023 attack killed 308 members of the two families, including 40 children, 30 women and seven people with disabilities.

Rescue teams recently recovered more than 100 bodies from the site, allowing families to hold funeral prayers and burials. Palestinian authorities say about 157 people remain missing, either still beneath the rubble or otherwise unaccounted for.

Rows of coffins draped in Palestinian flags were carried through Gaza City as mourners gathered for the funeral. Large banners bearing photographs of the victims were displayed alongside calls for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza that began in October 2023.

‘Exceptional and painful scene’

The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza described the funeral as one of the largest held in the territory during the war, with spokesman Mahmoud Basal posting on X that Gaza was “set for an exceptional and painful scene”.

He said the funeral procession reflected the scale of the human losses suffered by Palestinian families who have waited years to bury their relatives.

The funeral also prompted an outpouring of grief from Palestinian researchers, activists and human rights advocates, many of whom said it symbolised the suffering of families still waiting to recover loved ones buried beneath the rubble.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, described the funeral as potentially being “the largest funeral in Palestinian history”.

Palestinian researcher Mahmoud Hamed al-Aila said Gaza was “extracting the bodies of its children from under the rubble after years of genocide”.

“What heart can bear this pain?” he asked.

Activist Mohammed Haniyah said dozens of other bodies have decomposed or are still missing under the rubble.

Another activist, Ali Abo Rezeq, said the procession turned “massacre statistics into coffins and shrouds”, highlighting that some families searched through the rubble with their bare hands because of the shortages of heavy equipment.

Online bloggers, including Malik Al-Shanbari and Khaled Safi, viewed the funeral not merely as a burial ceremony, but as a “renewed testament to the scale of the tragedy left behind by the war”.

Ramy Abdu, chairman of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said around 200 members of the Abu Sharia family are still believed to be beneath the rubble, and that their remains may have decomposed.

The funeral also highlighted the fate of thousands of other Palestinian families who are still waiting to recover the remains of their relatives believed to be missing beneath the rubble across Gaza.

The funeral was held amid ongoing Israeli violations of a “ceasefire” agreement in October. As of Monday, continued Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,250 Palestinians and injured 4,110 others.

The so-called ceasefire deal was signed after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 73,375 Palestinians and wounded at least 174,220, most of them women and children.

About 90 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has also been damaged or destroyed during the genocide.

Meanwhile, the Assembly of Palestinian Clans and Families called on the Western-backed Board of Peace to accelerate efforts to recover bodies still trapped beneath the rubble, clear the debris and support the reconstruction of Gaza.

It said the burial of 112 Palestinians may have marked the end of the long wait for some families, but it did not end the search for thousands of others still missing.

Aug. 4 (UPI) — The U.S. military’s strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific may have killed people not involved in drug trafficking, said Sen. Tim Kaine after reviewing classified documents on the operation.

The senior Democratic lawmaker from Virginia and a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees sent President Donald Trump a letter Monday urging him to examine whether military leaders exceeded his orders by targeting people the Justice Department did not say could be legally targeted and killed.

“And once you have done so, I urge you to halt this illegal, costly and ineffective operation,” Kaine said.

Since the first strike on Sept. 2, the U.S. Southern Command has killed at least 221 people in 66 publicly acknowledged attacks, according to UPI’s count based on military press releases.

Human rights and legal experts have widely condemned the strikes as illegal extrajudicial killings carried out by the military in what is ostensibly a law enforcement matter. The Trump administration argues that it is in “armed conflict” with the drug cartels.

Little information about the strikes has been made public because much of it is classified. SOUTHCOM has responded to UPI’s requests for information on the planning and execution of these strikes by stating it does not comment on ongoing operations.

In July 2025, Trump authorized the Department of Defense through a still-classified directive to us military force against organizations he selected in a classified target list.

In September, after the strikes began, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion providing legal support for the operation, and stipulating who could be targeted in the attacks. That opinion remains classified, as does an October order from the Pentagon that contains targeting criteria SOUTHCOM is to use in carrying out these strikes.

Kaine said he had reviewed the classified documents, which often include descriptions of the targets and their activities during the kinetic operations. He said the documents make clear “that the United States is engaged in violent and fatal attacks against people far beyond those whom the OLC opinion claimed could be lawfully targeted.”

“In other words, a careful review of the available evidence suggests that the United States has killed individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking,” he said.

“They are murder victims.”

At least some of those killed in the strikes have been credibly described as fishermen who were not involved in drug trafficking. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused Trump of murdering Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza in an early September attack. The families of two men killed in October are also suing the Trump administration for damages, saying their loved ones were killed as they were heading home to Trinidad and Tobago after working as fishermen and farmers in nearby Venezuela.

Kaine’s letter follows a report by The Washington Post that found the fatal strikes have failed to curb the amount of cocaine entering the United States.

SOUTHCOM’s Operation Southern Spear, which includes the boat-strike campaign, had incurred $647 million in obligations through March, according to a Pentagon inspector general report.

Aug. 1 (UPI) — World-renowned mountaineer Nirmal Purja and nine others were killed during an avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak, it was confirmed Saturday.

Purja, 42, was among 10 climbers who were swept away by the deadly avalanche on Thursday, leading rescuers on a frantic search for survivors.

Officials said Friday they had found two bodies and one body part, but did not confirm who had died.

“Today, it is with profound sadness and immense heartbreak that we confirm that Nirmal ‘Nimsdal’ Purja tragically lost his life following the avalanche on Broad Peak,” his company said in a statement on Instagram.

“We have also received confirmation that other members of the expedition sadly did not survive,” the statement added.

The expedition included Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy of Oman, Sohail Sakhi of Pakistan, Wang Zhong of China, Mallory Geis of the United States, as well as Pur “Yukta” Bahadur Gurung, Kili “Kilu” Pemba Sherpa, Nima Sherpa and Nawang Thindu Sherpa.

Purja, known as Nims Dai, reached the peak of his sport in 2019, when he climbed all of the world’s 14 tallest peaks in just six months, beating the previous record by nearly eight years.

“The world has lost one of mountaineering’s greatest climbers; a leader who inspired millions through his courage, humility and unwavering belief that human potential is far greater than we often imagine,” his company said.

“More than his extraordinary achievements, he wanted to show the world what was possible when you dared to dream bigger, believed in yourself and refused to accept limitations,” the statement continued. “Through his actions, he inspired millions of people to believe that they, too, could achieve more than they ever thought possible.”

Purja, who was Nepali and British, served in the U.K. military for 16 years and was awarded an MBE by the queen in 2016 for his outstanding achievement in mountaineering.

“Nims served with distinction in the British Armed Forces before becoming one of the world’s greatest mountaineers, putting Nepalese climbers on the map,” Prince Williams of Wales said in a statement on X.

“His relentless pursuit of what seemed impossible, combined with his humility and selflessness, made him truly unique.”

At least 25 people have been killed and dozens others injured in a bus crash in Algeria. The bus plunged into a ravine in the coastal town of Bourmedes, about 50 kilometres from the capital Algiers.

Israeli strikes hit multiple areas across Gaza overnight, including tents sheltering displaced families in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. In Gaza City, an attack on a residential apartment injured many Palestinians, most of them children, according to eyewitnesses.

ICE deported a married couple back to Guatemala who had sought safety in the US. Their bodies have been found tied up and shot, with their 14-month-old daughter left alive beside them.

Four other Palestinians were also killed by Israeli air strikes, and a policeman died from wounds sustained last week.

The head of the Hamas-led police force in northern Gaza has been killed by an Israeli air strike, while other attacks have claimed the lives of five more Palestinians, the Hamas-run interior ministry and medics said.

Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser Al-Maqadma, who also served as governor of northern Gaza, was targeted in the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City on Saturday. The Israeli military said he had also been a member of the military wing of Hamas.

Israeli strikes also killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and two people in a house in Khan Younis. Israel’s military said the house was attacked to target a member of the Islamic Jihad group

Later on Saturday, another air strike on Khan Younis killed high school student Khaled Al-Breim. Relatives said he was killed as he sought to bring ⁠sweets to distribute to relatives and friends who had flocked into his family home to offer their congratulations as he had just concluded high school and was preparing for university.

A sixth death was a policeman who was wounded by an Israeli strike last week and died from his injuries on Saturday.

In recent months, Israel has killed dozens of members of the Hamas-led police force, alleging that many were tied to Hamas’ armed wing and represented an active threat.

Hamas accuses Israel of deliberately targeting the force to destabilise the enclave, calling it a further breach of the US-brokered ceasefire reached in October.

The ceasefire deal has been mostly ignored by Israel. Since the truce agreement was signed, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Over the same period, four Israeli soldiers have been killed in attacks in Gaza.

At least 35 people have been killed and dozens injured after two buses collided on a major highway linking eastern Syria to Damascus.

The crash comes amid wider concerns over road safety and deteriorating transport infrastructure following years of war.

Overnight funerals were held for four Palestinians killed near Nablus. Palestinian officials blame Israeli settlers and soldiers for attacking areas in the occupied West Bank, while Israel said the violence began after an attack on Israeli civilians.

Mexican journalist Alejandro Leyva Aguilar was shot dead while eating at a street food stall in Oaxaca. He had spent years reporting on alleged corruption and criminal violence. His murder marks the fourth journalist killing in Mexico since June.

Actor Kaylee Hottle, best known for her portrayal of a young deaf orphan who shares a special bond with the giant guardian ape in “Godzilla vs. Kong” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” has died. She was 18.

Hottle died Tuesday morning after the car she was a passenger in crashed into a culvert off the side of the road in Ijamsville, Md., the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Her father, Joshua Hottle, confirmed her death in a video on Facebook.

“I am taking a flight that I never would like to take,” he wrote in the caption of the video post, in which he explained the situation in American Sign Language. He was on his way from Texas to claim her body, according to TMZ.

The Texas School for the Deaf also addressed the actor’s death on social media.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the heartbreaking news that one of our TSD seniors, Kaylee Hottle, tragically passed away yesterday in a car accident in Frederick, Maryland,” read the Instagram post. “Our hearts are with Kaylee’s family, friends, classmates and everyone who knew and loved her during this incredibly difficult time.”

Hottle’s breakout role was in the 2021 MonsterVerse crossover “Godzilla vs. Kong,” which marked her big-screen debut as the young orphan Jia. Jia is the last remaining survivor of the Iwi tribe on Skull Island who shares a connection with Kong, the island’s protector. Her adoptive parent, Dr. Ilene Andrews, is a linguistics expert and Kong researcher, played by Rebecca Hall. Hottle reprised the role in the 2024 follow-up, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.”

“After I watched the movie, I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to make such a big impact,’” Hottle said in a 2024 interview with New York’s WABC. “I was so excited. She’s a young deaf girl, just like many others out there. And this journey that she’s going on is just going to be so amazing.”

The actor, who was born in Atlanta, was from an all-deaf family, which included four generations of deaf relatives on her father’s side, according to IMDb.

Authorities said Hottle was one of two passengers in the 1995 Honda Accord that was involved in the crash. While the incident is still being investigated, the Sheriff’s Office said in its news release that “excessive speed is believed to be a contributing factor in the collision.”

Millie Bobby Brown, who also appeared in “Godzilla vs. Kong,” was among those who shared tributes to Hottle following the news of her death.

“I’m so devastated to hear this,” she wrote in her Instagram story, which included a black-and-white photo of Hottle as Jia. “You will be deeply missed Kaylee.”

“I am absolutely gutted about the passing of sweet Kaylee Hottle,” Oscar winner Marlee Matlin wrote on Instagram. “May her beauty and talent be a memory for eternity. … Such a privilege to have met Kaylee last year. Please be kind to one another. Take the time to listen to your child. Say 🤟🏼 each time you part. 🩵”

Monsoon rains devastate communities, with rescue and relief operations intensifying and the death toll rising.

At least 25 people have been killed as floods and landslides have hit across north and northeastern India, local officials reported.

Several incidents were reported over the weekend in Indian-administered Kashmir and the northeastern state of Nagaland, following days of torrential monsoon rain, officials said on Monday.

In Kashmir, rain-related incidents in the Poonch, Rajouri and Doda districts killed at least 15 people, with several others reported missing, a senior police official said. In Nagaland, multiple landslides triggered by persistent rains killed nine people.

“We have recovered four of the eight bodies, and rescue work is ongoing,” Wennyei Konyak, the magistrate of Nagaland’s Mon district, told the AFP news agency, adding that at least 15 others had been injured.

In Jammu, a flash flood in Rajouri caused extensive damage to public and private property and disrupted countless lives, according to a statement from the office of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Army personnel and state emergency responders rescued 11 people, including five children.

In the neighbouring state of Assam, one person died in flooding on Sunday, according to the state disaster management body, which said more than 57,000 people across seven districts had been affected.

India’s weather office warned of the potential for more extremely heavy rainfall in Jammu and Kashmir over the coming days, with active monsoon conditions likely to persist across the region for up to a week.

Authorities also announced the temporary suspension of the annual Amarnath pilgrimage, which drew more than 400,000 Hindus last year, and the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage in Jammu, citing the safety of devotees until routes are declared safe.

Floods and related accidents are an annual occurrence across India during the monsoon months, which follow the region’s long summers, with many parts of the country also facing severe water scarcity and drought.

July 20 (UPI) — The Department of Defense on Monday identified the two active-duty U.S. soldiers who were killed in action by an Iranian strike on Friday in Jordan.

The Pentagon announced the deaths of 25-year-old Tyler James Feehan of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and 19-year-old Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas. They were stationed at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan when it was hit by Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes.

Four more U.S. troops were injured in the strikes.

The deaths of Feehan and Gonzales were the first deaths of U.S. troops since the peace deal between the United States and Iran was briefly met earlier this month. Since the war began in February, 17 U.S. troops have been killed, including a soldier who was killed in Iraq on Saturday. That soldier has not been publicly identified.

Feehan was assigned to the 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command in Fort Bragg, N.C. Gonzales was assigned to the 10th Army Air Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.

The United States and Iran have traded strikes for nine consecutive nights since the peace agreement between the sides was broken earlier this month. President Donald Trump said Sunday that the U.S. strikes over the weekend were in “honor” of the “probably three” soldiers killed in Jordan and Iraq.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Saturday that it began launching new airstrikes against Iran at Trump’s direction.