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Aug. 14 (UPI) — The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is returning home after a lengthy, record-breaking deployment which some crew members’ families said caused their loved ones to attempt suicide, Navy officials announced Friday.

The vessel will be replaced in the Middle East by another aircraft carrier, President Donald Trump later told reporters, while dismissing concerns over the mental well-being of its sailors and Marines during its 266-day deployment.

The USS Abraham Lincoln “crushed their deployment and will return home soon as part of a planned rotation,” acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said in a social media statement. “Details will come but let me be clear: the safety and security of our Sailors and Marines always comes first.”

The Lincoln’s time at sea “was extended because the mission demanded it. Deployments are hard,” he added, while criticizing what he called a “dishonest” portrayal of the crew’s health situation by media allegedly attempting to “paint our warriors as victims.”

Families of sailors serving on the ship have told reporters several crew members have tried to jump overboard or have been stopped from doing so in recent months as the Lincoln’s deployment reached record-setting proportions.

This prompted Senate Armed Services Committee member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to voice “serious concerns” about the length of the warship’s deployment as well as additional reports of supply shortages and contaminated water.

Cao on Friday admitted that “a small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life” and that meal plans “were adjusted” when fresh resupply was unavailable “without a single meal being missed.

“There is no question our young men and women have been pushed to their limits-but they have never broken,” he said. “They are rightly tired — but have never been out of the fight.

“However, it is clear, knowing the whole story, our force and their families are not victims. They are the epitome of American strength and resilience.”

The Abraham Lincoln will be replaced in the Middle East by the USS George Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump, meanwhile confirmed another carrier is on its way, telling reporters that the Lincoln “is moving right now or very shortly and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship.”

He responded, “no, they’re not,” when asked if sailors’ families are concerned, and questioned whether the 266-day deployment was too long, he answered, “No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.”

Aug. 14 (UPI) — U.S. health officials said they have begun inspections at the Mexican processing plant of the U.S. food distributor Taylor Farms as they deal with a continuing cyclosporiasis outbreak that has spread across 17 states.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday they have “initiated an onsite inspection and sampling” at Taylor Farms de Mexico’s facility in Guanajuato, Mexico, located about 185 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Taylor Farms, based in Salinas, Calif., voluntarily recalled all iceberg lettuce from that area on July 17, including shredded lettuce used in Taco Bell products and in salad kits sold in some grocery stores.

Taco Bell also said it was removing shredded lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms in affected states.

The illnesses, most of which began before July 17, have reached 9,481 cases reported across 17 states as of Thursday, the FDA said.

The latest total included two new states since the previous update issued last week — Maine and Massachusetts. The other affected states include Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

“FDA remains confident that all recalled iceberg lettuce related to this specific Cyclospora outbreak is off the market,” the agency said Thursday. “FDA will continue to work with federal and state partners to investigate this multistate outbreak.”

Including the current outbreak, the CDC has registered reports of 13,895 cases of cyclosporiasis since May 1, and is also tracking of at least 10,455 additional cases of cyclospora infection requiring further investigation and analysis.

The situation has angered Democratic lawmakers who are demanding answers from Taylor Farms and the Trump administration.

On July 27, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called on Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor to explain his company’s role in the outbreak and whether it “used its political donations and White House connections to interfere with the Food and Drug Administration’s investigation into the contaminated food supply.”

“Evidence points to Taylor Farms products as a source of the outbreak, but reports indicate that your company may have attempted to influence the ongoing [FDA] investigation into the matter, obfuscate Taylor Farms’ role in a public health crisis, and mislead consumers trying to keep their families safe,” Garcia wrote.

And on Wednesday, the Food Safety Coalition, a group including consumers, scientists and government watchdogs, urged the Senate Republicans to rescind a measure instituted last year which “prevents the [FDA] from implementing traceability requirements for high-risk foods, including leafy greens, until July 2028.”

The hobbled traceability rules, the coalition said, has contributed to “a crisis in consumer confidence, in part due to Taylor Farms’ … failure to provide information to the public required under the FDA rule in its recall communications.”

Aug. 14 (UPI) — Long-sought artworks by Henri Mattise, Paul Cezanne and Pierre-August Renoir worth millions of dollars and stolen in two separate cases have been recovered in Italy and Brazil, police said.

In the Italian city of Parma, authorities announced Friday that searches authorized by the local prosecutor’s office had turned up the three paintings stolen in March.

These include Still Life with Cherries, a pencil-and-watercolor on white paper by the post-impressionist artist Paul Cezanne with an estimated value of $6.9 million, Les Poisson (The Fish), an oil-on-canvas by the impressionist artist Renoir valued at $3.5 million, and Odalisque on the Terrace, a color aquatint on paper by the modernist Matisse with worth an estimated $23,000.

No arrests were reported in connection with the recoveries but the investigations were ongoing, the Carabinieri of Parma province said.

The works were stolen on March 23 from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca museum in Traversetolo, Italy.

Meanwhile, police in Sao Paulo announced Friday that they recovered eight Matisse artworks taken from the Mário de Andrade Library in Sao Bernardo do Campo, which were stolen in December.

Authorities told reporters the engravings were found in a home in the city, where they were being kept by a 44-year-old suspect who was allegedly guarding the pieces for the perpetrator of the crime.

Five other artworks by Candido Portinari, stolen in the same robbery, have not been located and are now thought to have been sold, police said.

The stolen Matisse engravings were part of a joint exhibition with São Paulo Museum of Modern Art titled “From Book to Museum.”

Aug. 14 (UPI) — Department of Homeland Security investigators took part in a wide-ranging probe of progressive groups and labor unions as part of a crackdown on dissent during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, according to court filings.

Documents filed in Minneapolis on Thursday by lawyers defending 15 Minnesotans against federal conspiracy charges showed DHS agents secretly obtained financial records from labor unions and recorded meetings of social justice groups at private buildings, public parks and churches as they organized against the large-scale Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crackdown in the Twin Cities earlier this year.

The documents also showed that DHS agents collected the license plate numbers of people attending an anti-ICE meeting at a suburban church in order to obtain the names of those inside, then produced dossiers on the attendees including their names, photos, addresses, vehicle registrations, family and employment information.

The filings were made as part of the conspiracy case against the “Minnesota 15,” in which federal prosecutors in June charged 15 anti-ICE protesters identified as members of a loosely organized coalition called Direct Action MN with being “antifa” domestic terrorists who illegally sought to impede ICE during Operation Metro Surge.

The Trump administration’s ICE surge in Minnesota drew widespread protests and pushback, including volunteer “rapid response” and “ICE watch” patrols. ICE agents killed two protestors, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the surge.

Kevin Riach, a defense attorney for defendant Isaac Sant, obtained the documents from DHS as part of the discovery process for the case and filed them Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

In the filing he argued that the federal government used administrative subpoenas, rather than court orders, to illegally obtain private information, including financial information from unions such as the Service Employees International Union and Communications Workers of America, as well as private groups.

“This broad collection of financial records of labor and social justice advocacy organizations, done in secret and with no articulable criminal predicate, violates both the First Amendment and these organizations’ right to financial privacy,” Riach wrote.

One DHS document included in the filing showed the surveillance efforts, dubbed “Operation Puppet Master” and “Operation Whipple Shield,” operated under a diagram purporting to show criminal connections between Direct Action MN and the AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, Democratic Socialists of America and Minnesota Association of Professional Employees — the union representing Minnesota state workers.

The documents drew outrage from a broad coalition of labor and civil society groups on Thursday, who said they have issued “a call to unity in the face of reports that the Trump administration’s Department of Justice may have investigated without reason and engaged in surveillance of community and labor groups who helped organize tens of thousands of Minnesotans to peacefully defend their neighbors and constitutional rights during the lawless, chaotic ICE and CBP operation that terrorized countless Minnesotans.”

“We know the truth, and we will not be intimidated,” they wrote in a statement. “When self-serving politicians are losing, they lie and attempt political repression, trying to silence the voices of those who bravely stand up to them.

“Minnesotans will not be intimidated or divided by sham accusations or investigations of some of the countless groups and community members who organized, acted, and stood up together to protect their neighbors during Operation Metro Surge.”

Israeli settlers have marauded across the occupied West Bank for months, attacking Palestinian towns and villages with impunity.

Events in Qusra, a village south of Nablus, where Israeli settlers have laid siege to three Palestinian households since Sunday, have even led to a rare condemnation of settler behaviour by the Israeli government, with spokesperson David Mercer calling the settlers’ actions “deplorable” and “unacceptable”, and promising that Israeli authorities would investigate and arrest those responsible.

Analysts, campaigners, and Israeli parliamentarians who spoke to Al Jazeera have reacted to that with disbelief and incredulity, pointing to the inability of the Israeli military to stop the siege, in which the settlers have cut off water and electricity to Qusra. Israeli soldiers were initially even seen mingling and even praying with settlers in Qusra.

Complicity

“Government attempts to distance themselves from the violence are ridiculous,” Aida Touma-Sliman, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the left-wing Hadash party, told Al Jazeera. “They can say what they want, but they’re complicit.”

“If you look at the West Bank, you can no longer differentiate between the army and the settlers,” she said, adding that many of the settlers had been allowed to carry out their military service protecting the same illegal settlements they had come from. “The government is supplying them, protecting and arming them. It isn’t opposed to them. Supporting them is policy,” she added.

“There is nothing new in what’s happening in Qusra,” Yair Dvir of the Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem said. “We’ve been seeing this for decades. When there’s international criticism of the violence, the government condemns it, the settlers withdraw, and then return as soon as attention shifts.”

“Let’s be clear, settler violence is state violence,” Dvir added. “They both have the same aim: to displace Palestinians and to take their land.”

The speed and brutality of the Israeli government’s encroachment upon Palestinian land, in defiance of both international law and the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it should stop its illegal settlement of Palestinian territory, has increased in recent months. United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs monitoring shows settler violence to be increasing with every week that Israel’s October election – and the potential end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government – draws nearer.

“We’re definitely seeking an escalation of violence across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in other areas, such as Gaza, in the build-up to the election,” saidNeve Gordon, a professor of International Law at Queen Mary University, London, and the author of “Israel’s Occupation”.

“The vote is like a rallying cry for that entire [settler] constituency that they have to do as much as they can, while they can,” he said of fears among settlers and the radical Israeli right that they might lose what many regard as their allies in Netanyahu’s coalition.

Settlement unchained

The Israeli government has done little to distance itself from the actions of the settlers. Instead, prominent members of Netanyhu’s Likud party have attended prominent settlement conferences, including those explicitly focused on ethnically cleansing Gaza. Netanyahu himself responded to recent violence in the Palestinian village of Tal – which prompted the United Nations to warn that the entire West Bank was at “breaking point” – by promising to recognise even more illegal settlements.

At the heart of government policy on settlements have been the polarising figures of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Smotrich has proven to be one of the most consequential Israeli politicians in history in promoting the cause of illegal settlements.

As well as normalising political references to the annexation of the Palestinian territory, Smotrich made being granted partial administrative control over the occupied West Bank a key condition of his joining Netanyahu’s coalition. He has since overseen the expansion of illegal settlements at an unprecedented rate.

Smotrich has also boasted of making the two-state solution a practical impossibility with the announcement of the E1 settlement project, joining occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, in August of last year.

However, focusing on just two of the coalition’s more controversial figures was to miss the point, Gordon argued.

“It’s too easy to say it’s all the fault of these few people and if they were gone it would all be OK,” Gordon said. “It goes far wider.”

“The ethnic cleansing we’re seeing of the West Bank, as well as that being undertaken by the army in the territory’s refugee camps, such as Jenin, needs the complicity of the police, the attorney general, the military and, ultimately, the public,” the professor noted. “Without the umbrella they provide, none of this would be possible.”

The decisions mark both a victory and a setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who had championed both policies.

France’s Constitutional Council has upheld a law passed by parliament to legalise assisted dying in specific circumstances, while striking down a separate bill that sought to ban under-15s from using social media.

The council, France’s highest constitutional authority, issued its rulings on Friday. The decisions mark both a victory and a setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who had championed both policies.

France is set to join several European countries that have already legalised assisted dying, including Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg, among others.

“This decision marks the culmination of a long democratic and parliamentary effort, conducted with listening, respect, and rigour,” Elisabeth Borne, MP and former French prime minister, said in a post on X about the assisted-dying decision.

“I welcome this definitive validation of a text that guarantees everyone the freedom to choose, within a strict and protective framework.”

The council upheld the law in its entirety while clarifying three provisions, including the so-called conscience clause, under which pharmacists may refuse to assist a patient in ending their life.

Private treatment centres can also refuse to participate in the procedure if it goes against their mission, and other centres can serve local needs. Lastly, in the case of protected patients, the opinion of the person responsible for their welfare must be taken into account.

French citizens and legal residents can request medical support in ending their lives under strict conditions. The legislation stipulates that the patient must be “suffering from an incurable, life-threatening illness in an advanced or terminal phase”, and that the illness must cause “constant physical or psychological suffering that is untreatable or unbearable”. Lastly, the patient must exercise free and informed consent.

The French National Assembly passed the bill last month by a majority of 50, with 291 voting in favour and 241 against.

Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court struck down legislation banning under-15s from social media, citing freedom of expression.

“By prohibiting minors under the age of fifteen from accessing certain online services, the law inherently requires every person, even an adult, to prove their age before accessing them,” the court said in its decision.

“However, by failing to specify the conditions and limits under which such proof must be provided, the legislature has not established the legal safeguards necessary to ensure compliance with these requirements,” it added. The court also said that the law fails to safeguard people’s privacy.

The bill was one of Macron’s flagship policies and was passed by parliament last month.

It stipulated that everyone in France would have to verify their age to access social media sites, and it was supposed to come into effect in January 2027. Macron was eager for the bill to be passed before the presidential election next year.

After Friday’s ruling, Macron asked Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to work on a new “legally robust draft” of the legislation.

Last month, Amnesty International responded to the French parliament’s decision to impose the social media ban on teens, urging lawmakers to focus their efforts on forcing companies to redesign their apps, including what it described as “addictive features”.

“There is no doubt that regulating platforms to protect children is an imperative of our time. We commend states for taking social media harms seriously but rather than pursuing blanket bans, efforts should be on forcing platforms to abandon their reckless pursuit of profit to the detriment of human rights,” Secretary General Agnes Callamard said.

“Building safe platforms requires a robust response. To ensure platforms are spaces where children can access community, connection and knowledge in a healthy and safe way, governments should first focus on banning the features that drive harm, including engagement-based algorithms that Amnesty International’s research has shown can draw children into rabbit holes of depressive and suicidal content.”

Aug. 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Commerce said Friday that retail sales dropped 0.6% in July from June, the largest decline since May 2025.

The department’s figures, which are adjusted for seasonal swings but not for inflation, revealed retail sales were down from June’s 0.2% gain and fell far short of the 0.1% gain that economists had forecasted in a FactSet poll.

However, retail sales have increased by 5% over the past year, exceeding the long-term average.

Some analysts attributed a portion of July’s dip to the annual Amazon Prime sale, which normally takes place in July, but was held in June this year. Internet sales, the second-largest category of retail sales after automotive, were down 2.3% in July.

Figures for the past year show online sales are overall up 8%.

Auto sales were down 1.8% in June.

The Commerce Department report showed sales at bars and restaurants actually went up in July, with a .5% increase over the previous month.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier revealed 23,000 jobs were cut by employers in July. The unemployment rate was measured at 4.1%, down from 4.2% in June.

Aug. 14 (UPI) — A federal trade court threw out a legal challenge to President Trump’s executive order scrapping the so-called “de minimis” exemption loophole under which goods worth less than $800 could enter the United States duty free.

Three judges sitting in the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Thursday that Trump had the legal authority to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to eliminate de minimis, in contrast to his April 2025 “liberation day” global tariffs which it ruled were unlawful, a decision the Supreme Court subsequently upheld.

“In reaching this conclusion, we find that the President’s power to ‘nullify [or] void . . . exercising any . . . privilege’ does not run afoul of separation of powers principles,” they wrote in their judgment.

The judges found the removal of the exemption did not constitute “an exercise of the power of the purse” and “is not an exercise of the power to legislate.”

In the global tariffs case, the Supreme Court came to the opposite conclusion, ruling that Trump could not act without approval from Congress.

Trump hailed Thursday’s ruling as a “big win” for his resolve to get rid of what he said was a “ridiculous giveaway… one of the most DESPICABLE loopholes in American Trade Policy” that he said was costing the U.S. Treasury more than $10 billion in revenue from tariffs that it would otherwise receive.

“For years, Foreign Shippers could send packages worth up to $800 into our Country, DUTY FREE, NO TARIFF, far less scrutiny. It became a giant loophole for TARIFF Cheats — and a Pipeline exploited by Fentanyl Traffickers, Counterfeiters, and other Criminals shipping dangerous and illegal products into America. The numbers were staggering. In 2024 alone, de minimis cost America an estimated 10.8 BILLION DOLLARS in foregone TARIFF Revenue, and an astonishing share of narcotics and counterfeit seizures came through the de minimis channel,” said Trump.

Detroit Axle, a Michigan-based auto-parts distributor, brought the de minimis case last year on grounds Trump had overstepped his authority under IEEPA. The firm’s legal counsel did not immediately comment on the ruling.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection netted more than a billion dollars in 2025 from the ending of de minimis and the court ruling clears the way for it to continue until it is permanently eliminated when Trump’s One Big Beautiful tax cut and spending bill kicks in next July.

Aug. 14 (UPI) — Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage was re-elected to parliament on Friday, five weeks after he resigned his seat specifically in order to ask voters to back him amid a probe by parliamentary standards authorities into a $6.8 million gift he received before the 2024 general election.

With a turnout of 44.4%, Farage won the Clacton byelection with a 12,784 vote majority — winning about 1,000 votes more than when he won the seat the first time around in the July 2024 general election — but Thursday’s vote was boycotted by all main political parties who dismissed it as a political stunt by Farage to distract from the investigation.

As a result, the election was contested by an array of more than 35 parties including Reform rival Reclaim, independents and several novelty candidates including Count Binface, who came second with 9,455 votes, and three from the Monster Raving Loony Party that included Nick the Incredible Flying Brick, Howling Laud Hope and Baron von Thunderclap.

“The result in Clacton speaks for itself,” Farage wrote on X.

Farage didn’t attend the count or declaration of the result at Clacton Leisure Center early Friday with a party spokesman citing “a credible threat against him.”

Speaking at a victory party nearby Farage said the county police had advised him to stay away.

“I’m sad to say that after 33 years of being a candidate in active politics, I’ve been advised tonight by Essex Police that there is an organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the result. I’m damned if I’m going to stand on a stage having won a resounding victory, a ringing endorsement of all that I’ve tried to fight for and you’ve tried to fight for and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,” said Farage.

The BBC said Essex Police had told it the force had not warned any candidate not to attend.

Runner-up Count Binface, whose real name is Jonathan Harvey, told reporters he had sought and received assurances from Essex Police that there was no threat to the election events and it was 100% safe to proceed as normal.

“Let’s all meet for part 2 of the Clacton byelection, coming soon to a leisure centre near you,” said Harvey, referencing the possibility of doing it all again in a few months if the House of Commons votes to suspend Farage in the event he is found in breach of parliamentary rules.

A suspension of 10 or more parliamentary business days would automatically trigger a recall petition that requires the signatures of at least 10% of registered voters in the Clacton constituency to remove Farage and trigger another byelection.

Neither the sanction from the parliamentary standards commission, censure from his fellow MP’s or a recall would make him ineligible to try to win the seat back.

Farage is being investigated for allegedly failing to inform parliamentary authorities about a $6.8 million gift from Christopher Harborne, a British cypto billionaire based in Thailand.

Farage denies the allegations and says he has followed all the rules, arguing he was not required to declare the money because it was before he decided to run for parliament and it was a personal contribution to pay for his private security.

He is also under scrutiny, although not by the parliamentary standards commission, over his ties to convicted U.S. fraudster George Cottrell, with Reform acknowledging Farage accepted security, staff and accommodation from Cottrell in the run up to the 2024 election.

The developments come three weeks after London’s Met Police launched an investigation into payments to Reform U.K. allegedly from George Cottrell’s mother, Fiona Cottrell, that are alleged to have been routed via a company owned by the party’s deputy leader.

Kyiv targets Baltic oil hub and warehouse near Moscow with drones, as regional alerts prompt security measures in Latvia and Finland.

Russia says its forces have struck a railway station at the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail and two vessels near Mykolaiv, as Ukrainian drones hit targets inside Russia, including a Baltic oil export hub and a warehouse near Moscow.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said on Friday that the railway station in Izmail was being used to load, store, and transport military cargo and fuel for Ukraine’s armed forces, according to state news agency TASS.

The ministry added that Russian forces struck two tugboats off the coast of Mykolaiv that it claimed were escorting cargo vessels carrying weapons to Ukrainian ports.

The developments follow Russian attacks a day earlier that damaged port infrastructure and caused power cuts in Izmail, a vital export hub on the Danube River near the Romanian border.

Ukrainian drones target Ust-Luga and Tver

Meanwhile, Russian authorities said a Ukrainian drone attack triggered a fire at Ust-Luga, a major Baltic Sea oil export port in the Leningrad region.

Regional Governor Alexander Drozdenko said the fire had been brought under control and cleared with no casualties reported. He added that more than 50 drones had been shot down overnight in the region surrounding St Petersburg.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian refineries, ports, and energy infrastructure to raise the economic cost of Moscow’s war effort. More than a dozen major Russian refineries have been hit, contributing to domestic fuel shortages.

Further south, the governor of Russia’s Tver region said drone debris damaged a warehouse wall belonging to online retailer Wildberries northwest of Moscow. No injuries were reported. Wildberries facilities have been hit more than 20 times over the past month.

Due to the drone activity, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsia, temporarily restricted flights at all Moscow-area airports to ensure flight safety, according to TASS.

The overnight drone activity also prompted defensive measures elsewhere in the Baltic region.

Latvia’s armed forces said fighter jets shot down a drone that entered its airspace. Meanwhile, Finland temporarily restricted maritime movement in parts of the Baltic Sea as a precaution against potential drone incidents.

The Reform UK leader received 22,239 votes in the Clacton by-election, compared with 9,455 for Binface.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has regained his parliamentary seat, besting his main challenger Count Binface in a by-election he triggered by resigning his post last month.

Farage received 22,239 votes in the Clacton by-election compared with 9,455 for serial joke candidate Binface, who wears a rubbish can on his head and calls himself an “intergalactic space warrior”. The United Kingdom’s main political parties boycotted the election, creating the embarrassing face-off for Farage who had sought to use the election to boost his standing after allegations of financial impropriety.

Farage did not attend the official vote count early Friday and cancelled a planned victory speech, the BBC reported.

In earlier remarks as votes rolled in, Farage claimed a “convincing, overwhelming win”.

“I called this by-election because I wanted the people of Clacton, the voters of this constituency to be my judge, not the mainstream media in Britain,” he said, adding that Clacton voters had “stuck two fingers up to the entire political establishment”.

Binface, whose campaign promises included putting a cap on croissant prices and moving the restroom hand dryer of a local pub, told Al Jazeera “there’s more than one way to win.”

Listing former British premiers he has challenged in previous elections, he said: “You guys are fixated on winning numerically, but … where’s Theresa May, where’s Rishi Sunak, where’s Boris Johnson?”

The 9,455 votes in Clacton for Binface, who has run in six elections since 2019, were his best-ever electoral result.

Voter turnout in Thursday’s election was 44 percent, lower than the 59 percent turnout recorded at the 2024 general election, but not unusual for a by-election.

Farage and Binface both topped a long list of joke candidates, independents and members of fringe political parties.

Candidates on stage at the Clacton Leisure Centre, where the count was held, were seen cheering for each other as the results were announced, with many receiving fewer than 100 votes.

Many view Farage, a right-wing populist who was a vocal campaigner for Brexit, as a prospective candidate for prime minister. He has pledged to crack down on migration, including using the British navy to intercept and return asylum seekers arriving by boat.

Farage quit his seat in parliament in July during an investigation into whether he failed to report a 5 million pound ($6.75m) gift from a crypto billionaire overseas, triggering the by-election he took part in.

“I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all,” said Farage of the allegations at the time.

Taybeh, occupied West Bank – Underneath a painting of Jesus and his disciples, Sandra Basir brought out what she and her husband, Roland, now keep to protect their home: a couple of fire extinguishers.

They keep them because the last time Israeli settlers set fire to a neighbour’s car outside their house, no one else came. “Civil defence – when did they even show up? After everything was already over,” Roland says.

The couple’s nightly routine in their Palestinian Christian town is now similar to the majority-Muslim rural Palestinian communities besieged by settler attacks and nighttime military raids for years. Sandra checks the doors more than once before bed. They got a dog to stay outside to alert them of any trespassers. Sandra is, by her own description, always half-awake – listening for whoever might be coming for her four small children while they sleep.

Their seven-year-old son has stopped playing outside, Sandra says, and for months, the little boy told his father not to go to work – scared he might not return. “That’s what our life has become,” says Sandra, who was on the verge of tears throughout the conversation. “A child that age should just be playing.”

For more than 20 years, Roland built up a stone quarry and concrete-block factory on the edge of town, investing an estimated $5m in the business. After employing 40 local Palestinians, he has found his life’s work snatched by marauding settlers, both armed adults and some barely teenagers.

In the past three years – and with the situation deteriorating even more severely this past year – he and his workers were frequently chased off by settlers at gunpoint, with his quarry’s heavy-machinery equipment set on fire. The most brazen attack came in March, when Roland says some 30 to 40 settlers stormed the quarry site in a coordinated mass incursion. Videos and photos show them raising Israeli flags over the grounds and performing prayers on the land. Before leaving, they smashed his office, destroyed electrical panels, and pulled cameras from the walls.

Roland documented everything on video, filed complaints with the liaison office, the police, and every institution he could reach. All his efforts to mobilise help to protect his land, however, were for naught. The settlers were back the next day, with their attacks continuing ever since.

Meanwhile, Roland showed Al Jazeera donation pages online for the settlers that he says carried out the attacks. He also alleges that stone taken from his land was registered under a settler’s name and resold.

This past week, he finally stopped trying to continue operations, leaving his stone quarry business all but abandoned.

“They’ve taken the quarry, taken the factory, taken the land,” Roland says. “What’s left for them to take? My children? My house?”

A once-safe haven now in the crosshairs

A few years ago, nobody in Taybeh thought trouble like this was coming their way.

Madees Khoury, who runs the Taybeh Brewery her family founded in 1994, lived in Taybeh through the second Intifada, the Arab Spring, and every war on Gaza – but none of it ever really touched the quaint town filled with centuries-old churches, well-built homes, and street-corner statues of Mother Mary and Jesus. “Taybeh was always safe, untouched – never, never, never did I imagine it would come to this,” says Madees.

The town is traditionally identified with biblical Ephraim – the place Jesus is said to have withdrawn to before his final journey to Jerusalem – and is the last Palestinian town left in the West Bank whose population is entirely Christian, home now to roughly 1,200 people and to the ruins of the fifth-century Church of St George, one of the oldest Christian sites in the Holy Land.

Things began to change as Israeli settlers, after driving Bedouin and herding communities from areas to the east, increasingly turned their attention to the hills around Taybeh itself, commencing attacks within the town last year. Mayor Suleiman Khourieh estimates roughly seven settler outposts now surround the town – four or five, by his count, sitting directly on Taybeh’s municipal land.

The attacks that followed mirror those taking place across the rural West Bank, with Sandra – who says her mother’s arm was broken by a settler during last year’s olive harvest – and Roland showing Al Jazeera photographs and videos of the frequent settler incursions within the town’s central confines.

Repeatedly, settlers graze cattle, sheep and camels on private agricultural land. Last year, Christian leaders say fires were deliberately set near the church and its adjoining cemetery. A couple of months ago, armed settlers set large fires along the village’s farmlands and prevented firetrucks from reaching them, according to local residents who drove to the scene.

Residents of Taybeh now face routine restrictions on accessing their farmlands and resources, including the now depopulated Ein Samiya spring. The spring supplies all the water to Taybeh Brewery and other Palestinian communities in the area, but settlers have since taken control of it.

Madees Khoury remembers one morning, in February this year, when a group of settlers walked into the centre of town claiming to search for a horse that didn’t exist – while her cousin’s actual horse and its foal, kept in a small structure on her father and uncle’s land for years, stood a few metres away. When she and her family called Israel’s Civil Administration to have the settlers removed, she says the officials who arrived instead walked in alongside them, broke open the door, and helped carry the horses out. “Instead of removing them,” she says, “the officials who came walked alongside the settlers onto my father and uncle’s private property … took the horse and the foal, and walked out.”

The newest outpost, established just last week, sits on the western edge of town, in Area B of the West Bank – nominally under Palestinian civil administration, though security in these hills has long since fallen to whoever is willing to enforce it on the ground.

On his own land in Area B, Mayor Khourieh has watched a settler take over his vineyard and its well over the past month, following the establishment of a settler outpost nearby. Sitting in his office, Khourieh described the settlers cutting his locks, bringing sheep there to graze, at one point pitching a tent by the well and furnishing it with sofas, and even bathing in the water meant for his vines.

According to the mayor, the army eventually removed the settlers’ tent, but the settlers still come back daily to water their flock from Khourieh’s own well. “We still don’t know whether I’m even allowed to go to my own vineyard or not,” says the town mayor inside his office.

Israeli officials have, at least on paper, acknowledged the problem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this year that outposts established in Area B should be evacuated. But despite reported pressure from career military officials to remove the outposts over security concerns, enforcement has frequently been blocked amid opposition from officials in Netanyahu’s far-right government. By Peace Now’s latest count, of the approximately 390 illegal outposts and farms across the West Bank, at least 21 sit in Area B.

Al Jazeera has reached out to the Israeli authorities for comment on the attacks on Taybeh, and the accusations that their response has not been sufficient, but has yet to receive a response.

Hollow protections from the state

Following attacks in the area – including the invasion of a then-empty home of a Taybeh family on August 5 – on August 9, the Israeli army declared Taybeh, along with the neighbouring village of Rammun, a closed military zone.

The order itself has confused almost everyone tasked with living under it. It bars entry to Israelis and foreigners without a specific connection to the village, and the army has offered little clarity on the terms and enforcement. “It’s unclear,” Madees Khoury says. “The whole thing was strange.”

What almost no one in Taybeh believes is that the order will actually keep settlers out. Especially in the past year, such closed military zone orders have been issued in cases where settlers are attacking local Palestinians – only for those orders to be enforced selectively to remove activists attempting to offer protective presence to local Palestinians, while doing little to remove the violent settlers themselves.

Instead, the removal of visitors adds to the town’s growing isolation.

“The decision hasn’t amounted to anything practical,” the mayor says, “because the settler is still exactly where he was.” Father Bashar Fawadleh, priest of Taybeh’s Christ the Redeemer Church, put it more bluntly: “We don’t feel that they’re actually forbidding the settlers from coming to Taybeh.”

According to Roland, the day the military zone closure was announced, settlers broke into his office at the stone quarry and smashed cabinets, equipment, and anything they could reach inside. The following morning, he tried to go back to what remains of his quarry, but settlers confronted him again. He called the police; two and a half hours later, he says, they arrived, but the settlers had already left.

‘The cross we have to carry’

Emigration of Palestinian Christians has been an issue in Taybeh and elsewhere for years, as the Palestinian Christian population has shrunk to about 40,000 in the West Bank, or just more than 1 percent of the entire population. But under the pressures of severe restrictions on land access by Israeli authorities and settlers, movement restrictions, and the threat of unchecked settler attacks, in Taybeh, the quiet of emptiness is being replaced by a quiet borne of fear.

Madees Khoury says people avoid the roads now because no one wants to risk a checkpoint that might swallow four hours of their day, or a stretch of road where a settler’s car might slow down alongside theirs.

Tourism is gone; a well-known hiking trail that begins at the brewery sees almost no visitors any more. Among a wider economic depression and skyrocketing export costs imposed by Israeli authorities, Taybeh Brewery’s revenues are down 80 percent compared with before October 2023, according to Madees Khoury.

Fifteen families have already left Taybeh in the past two years, according to Father Bashar, along with dozens of individuals who left parents behind and moved on alone, mostly to the United States and Europe.

And yet almost no one who spoke to Al Jazeera described leaving as a real option for themselves. “Where is there to go?” asks Roland Basir, reiterating a common refrain heard across the West Bank these days.

“This land is ours,” says Father Bashar. “We cannot leave it easily … we want to resist by staying rooted in this land, to be part of this land, for dignity, for security, for peace, and for justice.”

Mayor Khourieh, whose own vineyard now sits behind a settler’s fence, put it in starker terms. “We are Palestinian Christians,” he says. “We have been in this town since the Lord Christ walked in it. This is our town. We will not leave it. Even if we die, we’ll be buried in it, because it’s holy ground.”

These days, Father Bashar frames the threats to this bastion of the wider Palestinian Christian community in the context of the suffering that Jesus endured. “For me, our cause, our problems, are the cross we have to carry on our shoulders,” he says.

He pauses before offering the line he says he carries into every house he visits after a new attack: “In the midst of this cross, in the hardest time, still we have hope. Inside our hearts, we have to put hope instead of the fear.”

A salvage operation is under way to stabilise the stricken tanker behind a major oil spill off Oman, the risk management company coordinating the effort has said.

The announcement by Ambrey on Thursday came a day after Oman’s environmental authority confirmed that oil from the Caroline Bezengi had reached beaches along the sultanate’s central coast.

The tanker, a suspected member of Russia’s shadow fleet used to transport sanctioned Russian oil, has been leaking crude into waters near the Hallaniyat archipelago since June, when the ship’s crew reported an unidentified explosion.

Ambrey said it was working with Omani authorities and that its services had been engaged as part of a “significant international response” that included salvage vessels, aircraft and specialist personnel.

Apart from Oman and an unnamed “leading international oil spill response company”, Ambrey did not elaborate on which other countries or firms were involved in the effort to salvage the vessel, which has flown the flags of states including Cameroon, Palau and Liberia.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) – the United Nations maritime agency – said on Thursday that it was “closely monitoring” the situation and would “continue to support ongoing efforts”, without providing further details.

The International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, a pair of intergovernmental organisations established to provide compensation for oil pollution, said it would not be involved in the cleanup operation after determining that the incident likely resulted from an act of war.

Ambrey, based in Hereford in the United Kingdom, said it expected salvage vessels to reach the Caroline Bezengi soon and that specialist personnel had already boarded the vessel to begin stabilising its cargo.

Ed Wollaston, director of global response at Ambrey, said the “extremely challenging situation” had been complicated by adverse weather from the annual Khareef monsoon.

“However, we have deployed the leading experts in each aspect of the response and have mobilised the appropriate supporting equipment, aircraft and vessels,” Wollaston said in a statement.

“We are working around the clock to mitigate the environmental impact of the situation.”

The oil spill has expanded dramatically in size over the past week, according to analyses of satellite imagery, raising fears for coastlines and ecosystems in the region, including a marine reserve established last year off the Hallaniyat archipelago.

Environmental NGO Greenpeace said on Thursday that, based on satellite imagery, the spill had grown from 45 square kilometres (17sq miles) in late July to about 1,300sq kilometres (502sq miles) as of Wednesday.

Omani authorities as recently as Monday estimated the size of the spill at approximately 400sq kilometres (154sq miles).

Hanen Keskes, Greenpeace’s head of campaigns for the MENA region, said the circumstances of the spill made it “especially challenging” to respond to.

“Given the scale of this – a damaged tanker in a remote location, during monsoon season, with no clear owner or verified insurer to compel a rapid response – this is a case where international assistance should be mobilised urgently,” Keskes told Al Jazeera.

“Capabilities like specialised salvage equipment and expertise can exceed what any one country has on hand, and every day of delay allows more oil to disperse.”

Najmedin Meshkati, an expert in oil spills and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, said that authorities should have moved faster to contain the spill.

“That two-month interval was the response window, and it closed. In spill response, source control on day three is worth many multiples of source control on day 60,” Meshkati told Al Jazeera.

Meshkati acknowledged, however, that Omani authorities had been dealt a difficult situation.

“It was handed an orphaned wreck with no responsive owner, no verifiable insurer, no functioning flag state, and a compensation regime containing a war exclusion that may void it entirely,” Meshkati said.

“No mid-sized maritime administration on earth is resourced for that. But that is precisely the argument for escalating harder and earlier.”

Damilola S Olawuyi, a professor of energy and environmental law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, said the spill highlighted the need for stronger international mechanisms to hold polluters accountable.

“The obligation of the entity responsible for pollution to pay for the cost of cleanup and remediation, ie, the polluter pays principle, has for long been a bedrock of international law,” Olawuyi told Al Jazeera.

“However, in an era of increasing geopolitical realignments, identifying the responsible polluter has become complex, therefore complicating effective risk reduction, response and remediation measures,” he said.

Brazil has not yet decided whether it will proceed with retaliatory measures, but has committed to defending its position.

Brazil has opened consultations into potential retaliatory measures against the United States following the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on a range of Brazilian exports.

The new US tariffs are “unjustified and arbitrary”, and Brazil will “continue to defend its position in all appropriate forums”, the Brazilian government said in a statement on Thursday.

The step is the beginning of the reciprocity process that could eventually see Brazil introduce retaliatory measures, including tariffs, on imports from the US.

This early stage involves further diplomatic consultations with US trade authorities.

In July, the US imposed a surcharge of 25 percent on some Brazilian imports, including sugar, clothing, paper and steel, alleging unfair trade practices. The US also hit Brazil – and a host of other countries – with an additional 12.5 percent tariff linked to allegations of lax enforcement of forced labour bans.

While no decision has yet been made, Brazil’s retaliatory options include imposing taxes or fees, eliminating exemptions or reducing import tariffs, or even restricting imports of American goods or services.

A source told the Reuters news agency that further measures could go beyond tariffs, for example by suspending pharmaceutical and agricultural patents.

The US runs a trade surplus with Brazil, meaning it sells the country goods and services worth more than it imports from it. In 2026 so far, the US has exported $26.5bn worth to Brazil and imported $17bn, according to the US Census Bureau.

Multiple rounds of tariffs

Under President Donald Trump, the US has repeatedly sought to impose sweeping tariffs on imports into the US, lamenting the US’s trade deficit with countries around the world.

In April 2025, the White House announced the introduction of a minimum 10 percent tariff on nearly every country, in what Trump and his team dubbed the “Liberation Day” tariffs.

Those were struck down by US courts this year, but the latest round of tariffs is widely seen as a replacement for the failed Liberation Day tariffs, designed to survive challenges in the US court system.

Aug. 13 (UPI) — A section of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. was vandalized Thursday, with red graffiti and mountains of soapy bubbles.

The bubbles were in and around the fountain at the memorial, which is on the National Mall. The graffiti spelled out “Clean hands diary $,” and red and green paint was thrown on some granite stonework.

“The vandalism that occurred is an utter disgrace and will not be tolerated,” the Department of the Interior said in a statement. “Our U.S. Park Police are on the scene and the investigation is ongoing. The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act.”

The nonprofit Friends of the National World War II Memorial, which is dedicated to preserving the memorial, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the incident.

“Whatever the intent, defacing a place dedicated to the service and sacrifice of the World War II generation is unacceptable,” the organization said in a statement. “A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”

The memorial draws around 5 million visitors each year.

The site underwent a nearly $4 million renovation, which was completed in May. It was closed for several months while aging infrastructure was updated and other repairs were made. The upgrades included new lighting in the fountain and the replacement of in-ground pillar lighting.

Aug. 13 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Thursday announced tariffs on imports of drones and related components, saying that the U.S. was ‘too reliant’ on drones produced overseas.

According to a White House fact sheet, a 100% tariff will be levied on “certain capabilities that are particularly sensitive for national security purposes, docking stations of these drones, and certain critical components of these drones.”

The category includes drones that have a top takeoff weight of more than 25 kilograms and those with thermal imaging features, the proclamations says.

The U.S. “is too reliant on foreign sources of [unmanned aircraft systems] and UAS components,” a proclamation signed by U.S. President Donald Trump says.

Meanwhile, smaller drones that do not have certain features that do not affect national security will face a 25% tariff. Drones and components produced in the European Union, Japan, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan will see a 15% levy. UK-produced drones will be assessed 10%.

The percentage of the tariffs will depend if “substantially all hardware, software, and technology originates from within these countries and the United States,” the fact sheet says.

The White House said the tariffs take effect in 21 days, but tariffs on drone components “that are not particularly sensitive,” will take effect in 180 days

For products and components that the Department of Defense has approved an exemption from the Federal Communications Commission’s Covered List within 20 days after being signed by Trump, the tariffs will take effect 180 days after signing.