Silenced

SEATTLE — Julio Rodriguez had three hits and scored twice, Bryan Woo took a shutout into the seventh inning and the Seattle Mariners put together a five-run sixth Tuesday night to beat the Angels 8-3.

Rodriguez and Colt Emerson both had three of Seattle’s 13 hits. Randy Arozarena and Cole Young scored two runs apiece.

Woo (7-6) gave up just four hits and struck out five in 6 1/3 innings. The Angels’ first two runs in their three-run seventh were charged to him after he gave way to reliever Eduard Bazardo. That ended Woo’s streak of home shutout innings at 32 1/3, which stretched over a span of five games dating to May 6 against Atlanta.

Michael Rucker pitched a scoreless eighth for the Mariners, and Andrés Muñoz set the Angels down in order in the ninth.

The Mariners batted around in the sixth, with their first five hitters reaching base on four hits and one walk. Rodriguez and Josh Naylor singled, then Arozarena singled to score Rodriguez with the first run and chase Angels starter José Soriano (8-5).

Cal Raleigh walked to load the bases, and Young singled to right, scoring Naylor. Arozarena scored on a wild pitch. Raleigh and Young came home on Weston Wilson’s single to right.

The Angels rallied with three in the seventh, the last two of those scoring on Zach Neto’s single to right.

Seattle answered with three in the bottom of the seventh. Emerson’s single that floated just above the outstretched glove of Angels first baseman Nolan Schanuel drove in the first two.

Wade Meckler had two of the Angels’ six hits.

Juba, South Sudan – In the days before Lankien was attacked, doctors at the local hospital rushed to evacuate patients. Some were women in labour. Others were being treated for gunshot wounds. By the evening of February 3, just hours after the last patients were carried out, a bomb struck the empty facility, ripping a crater through its warehouse.

Fighting was underway in surrounding areas as South Sudan’s military pressed forward with a counteroffensive aimed at retaking territory seized by opposition armed groups. As the army advanced eastward through Jonglei State, it captured town after town, pushing opposition fighters towards the Ethiopian border.

In the aftermath of the bombing, residents said they were forced to flee into surrounding marshland on the morning of February 7 as mortar fire struck the town. Some eventually returned and described extensive destruction.

The hospital had been looted and burned. Its cold-chain storage unit, used to preserve vaccines, was set on fire. Vehicles were sprayed with bullets and stripped for parts. Solar-powered water systems had been dismantled. The local market was reduced to twisted metal sheets, while homes on the outskirts appeared to have been burned.

“Anything that can support the life of human beings was deliberately destroyed,” said Emmerson Gono, deputy head of mission for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, who visited Lankien in April, adding that this was his assessment based on what he observed.

A counteroffensive across Jonglei

Since the start of what authorities refer to as “Operation Enduring Peace,” satellite imagery analysed by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), combined with verified videos, images and witness accounts, indicates widespread destruction across a swathe of Jonglei that has long been a stronghold of opposition groups.

Both the military and opposition forces have been accused of razing villages and attacking civilians in recent months. In this area of Jonglei, which is home to a section of the Nuer ethnic group that officials often cast as hostile to the state, more than a dozen residents who spoke to Al Jazeera said they believed the military was responsible for targeted destruction that experts say has pushed tens of thousands of people towards the brink of famine.

In most of the 23 incidents CIR documented between late January and February, civilian structures, including homes, health facilities and markets, appear to have been burned and looted. CIR said the destruction was “likely to be more widespread and potentially part of what it described as a deliberate military strategy”.

“Using satellite imagery, we were able to map how troop movements from west to east followed a path of burning and looting,” said CIR researcher Kiria Borak, stressing that satellite imagery alone cannot determine intent or responsibility.

Some officials and humanitarian actors have attributed the destruction in Jonglei to clashes between government troops and opposition forces. However, residents told Al Jazeera that opposition fighters were not present when their villages were attacked. Those accounts could not be independently verified due to restricted access to the area.

Government officials did not respond to requests for comment on the specific allegations described in this report. In earlier statements, authorities have said military operations are conducted in self-defence and that civilians are not deliberately targeted.

Political backdrop

Violence has escalated since 2025, when opposition leader and first vice president Riek Machar was arrested on charges of subversion, allegations he denies. Machar and President Salva Kiir were once on opposing sides of the country’s 2013–2018 civil war, which killed hundreds of thousands of people before a peace agreement brought them into a fragile unity government.

The implementation of that agreement stalled amid delays in unifying armed forces into a national military and repeated postponements of national elections.

Following Machar’s arrest, the government undertook a campaign of aerial bombardments to beat back a simmering rebellion in rural areas. Machar’s political group declared the peace deal dead and began launching hit-and-run attacks on military positions.

Between December and January, opposition fighters, buoyed by support from local armed youth, seized several military garrisons in Jonglei, prompting the government to announce a counteroffensive on January 28.

Then-army chief Paul Nang ordered forces, drawn from the national army, intelligence units, police and allied militias, according to UN investigators, to retake territory held by opposition groups.

Analysts say the involvement of allied militias operating alongside formal units has complicated the determination of command responsibility.

‘Burning homes’

Five individuals who fled Lankien told Al Jazeera they witnessed events unfold on February 7.

They said government-aligned forces reached the outskirts of the town after fighting in a nearby village. Around late morning, mortar fire struck the town, followed by the arrival of ground forces in armoured vehicles.

Gai Ket, 32, said he had been cutting firewood when explosions began. He rushed back to town to look for his wife and children.

“The first thing I saw was smoke. SSPDF was burning homes,” he said, referring to the national army.

When he reached his house, he found his wife dead, with a severe wound to her chest. Bodies lay scattered across the neighbourhood. “Everything was gone,” he said.

Another resident, Puoch Duol, said he returned at night to search for his grandmother, who had been too weak to flee. He said he found her body among several others near the ruins of burned homes.

Satellite imagery reviewed by CIR indicates significant destruction in Lankien between February 7 and 9. On February 7, the army announced it was in control of the town.

MSF has said government forces were in control of Lankien in the days after the attack but has not assigned responsibility for the destruction. It said the government is the only party to the conflict with the capability to carry out aerial bombardments.

Government-appointed officials told Al Jazeera that opposition fighters looted the town during their withdrawal. Opposition representatives deny this, saying their forces were not present at the time. Neither account could be independently verified.

A pattern of destruction

Residents described a similar pattern of destruction across towns and villages stretching from the Nile River to the Ethiopian border. Armed men in military-style uniforms arrived in armoured vehicles, often after opposition forces were reported to have withdrawn, according to residents.

Homes and markets were burned, while health facilities and humanitarian compounds were looted. Civilians took refuge in swamps and forests, while those too weak to flee were killed or went missing.

CIR geolocated social media footage from Pathai showing fighters moving among burning structures towards a road leading into the town’s western entrance. The identities of those in the footage could not be independently verified.

Jany, an aid worker based in the town of Walgak, described an attack on February 5.

“We saw smoke everywhere. They were firing guns and burning houses,” he said.

Satellite imagery shows significant structural damage in Walgak between February 3 and 7, shortly after the town changed hands.

Humanitarian sources tracking developments in the area reported that multiple villages in the vicinity of Walgak were burned or destroyed during the same period. These accounts could not be independently verified due to restricted access and ongoing insecurity.

Remote sensing data shows clusters of fire activity across the region during the same period. However, satellite imagery alone cannot determine the cause or responsibility for the fires.

Command rhetoric and discipline

From the start of military operations, remarks by commanders raised concerns over civilian safety.

A video circulated on social media shows Johnson Olony, a deputy army chief who is also head of the Agwelek armed group, telling troops not to spare lives or property during operations. The government later said the remarks did not reflect official policy, and Olony apologised.

In another video, a commander identified as Wal Nyak appears to threaten violence against perceived opposition supporters. “Whether you are a woman or a girl, we will kill you all … We don’t want supporters of Riek Machar here,” he says.

The authenticity and full context of the footage could not be independently verified.

Humanitarian impact

Aid agencies say the consequences of the destruction reported in the area are severe and likely to last for months or longer.

At least 28 health facilities in Jonglei were damaged or looted this year, according to the UN. Seventy percent are no longer functioning.

The Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-backed analysis body, says there is a risk of famine in multiple counties, while more than 70,000 people are already facing the highest possible severity of hunger.

Nicholas Kerandi of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said the impacts on food security and public health “are likely to persist through the remainder of the year and potentially beyond”.

Others say the alleged abuses in Jonglei have pushed South Sudan’s already fractured state to breaking point.

“The tribes don’t trust one another, the citizens don’t trust the government, and the government doesn’t trust its citizens,” Ter Manyang Gatwech, a human rights advocate from Jonglei, told Al Jazeera.

“Unless there is a miracle, South Sudan will disintegrate,” he said.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Thursday shut down an inquiry by Democrats into whether the Bush administration acted illegally or inappropriately last year when it withheld from Congress its estimates of the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill.

At issue are allegations that then-Medicare Administrator Thomas A. Scully threatened to fire his top actuary if he gave lawmakers his analyses showing the costs would be much higher than administration officials were saying publicly.

Thursday’s conclusion of a Ways and Means Committee hearing all but ensured that two individuals central to the controversy — Scully and White House aide Doug Badger — would not testify before Congress.

Separately, the Health and Human Services Department is conducting an internal investigation into the matter, and Democratic lawmakers have requested civil and criminal inquiries.

Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee had asked Scully and Badger to answer questions about when President Bush and top-ranking officials were told that internal estimates of the Medicare bill’s cost were more than one-third higher than the $400 billion Bush had set aside, and why those analyses had not been shared with lawmakers.

But White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, in a letter to committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), cited “long-standing White House policy” against having White House staff members testify before Congress as the reason Badger would not appear.

And Scully, now a private consultant, said in a letter to Thomas that he was unable to appear before the committee because “unfortunately, for the past ten days I have been traveling.”

Committee Democrats rejected both explanations. In the case of Badger, they said at least 45 high-ranking Clinton administration officials had testified before Congress; in the case of Scully, they offered to let him appear at a later time. But Republicans quashed the Democrats’ attempts to subpoena the men.

Republican committee members accused the Democrats of trying to capitalize on the controversy, which erupted last month when Medicare actuary Richard S. Foster told reporters that Scully had threatened to fire him if he responded to Democratic requests for analyses of the pending legislation.

Thomas, the committee chairman, said that although he was willing to use “whatever tools are necessary to get to the bottom of a violation of law,” he was not willing to issue subpoenas to Badger and Scully “to satisfy someone’s whim or curiosity.”

As for preliminary estimates by Foster indicating that the Medicare bill could cost as much as $551 billion over 10 years, Thomas said the information “probably would not have enlightened Congress as much as confused Congress.” Thomas chaired the House-Senate conference committee that completed the legislation.

In January, the Bush administration revised the estimated cost of the Medicare overhaul to $534 billion.

Democrats, who noted the original Medicare bill passed the House in June by one vote, charged that a broader constitutional issue was at stake: How far can the executive branch go in withholding information from Congress that could affect the outcome of a vote?

In November, a narrowly divided Congress passed the Medicare bill, which created a new prescription drug benefit and gave private insurers and drug companies billions of dollars to lure seniors and the disabled into managed care plans.

Several conservative Republicans, who were concerned about the bill’s projected $400-billion cost, voted for the legislation only after high-pressure lobbying by Bush and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.

“The main issue is who knew about the actuarial figure, and why wasn’t it disclosed in a timely fashion?” said Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.). “There was a cover-up of this information and we want to know how high the cover-up went.”

Procedural maneuvering and partisan wrangling dominated much of Thursday’s hearing, which was more than half over before its two witnesses began their testimony.

Jeff Flick, regional administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in San Francisco, confirmed that while serving as Scully’s special assistant he composed an e-mail to Foster that reiterated Scully’s insistence that Foster withhold information requested by Rep. Pete Stark (D-Hayward).

“The administrator emphasized that if Rick does not adhere to these instructions, it is outright insubordination and insubordination carries serious consequences,” Flick said, adding that Scully’s “actual language may have been more colorful.”

Scully, who has denied threatening to fire Foster, acknowledged in his letter to Thomas that “there is no question whatsoever that I made it very clear to Mr. Foster, both directly and indirectly, that I, as his supervisor, would decide when he would communicate with Congress.”

Leslie M. Norwalk, acting deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told committee members that she had advised an anguished Foster that although his office was not legally required to share information with Congress, the office was subject to Scully’s authority.