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Aug. 27 (UPI) — More than 100 bone fragments and about 30 teeth were found in El Arenal, a rural community in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco.

The remains were discovered Wednesday at a suspected clandestine extermination site during a search conducted by members of a group named after Vicente Suástegui Muñoz, an activist who disappeared five years ago.

The discovery coincided with the observance of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, which seeks to draw attention to people whose whereabouts remain unknown and demand action to resolve disappearance cases, Infobae reported.

The search occurred in an area considered a priority by families searching for missing relatives because of reports and testimony linked to disappearances in different parts of the region.

Samantha Colón Morales, president of the search collective and Suástegui’s wife, said an anonymous caller alerted her to the presence of bone fragments in the eastern part of Acapulco, local newspaper El Sur reported.

Colón said the site where the remains were found is accessible by dirt roads and is about 40 minutes from the federal highway. Lipsticks, belt buckles and rings were also among the items recovered at the site, she said.

Colón said she believes the property may have been used as an extermination site because of the number of remains and the conditions in which they were found, Quadratín Guerrero reported.

She said that for families of the missing, each piece of evidence recovered could help advance an investigation and eventually establish the identity of a missing person.

Colón explained authorities will analyze the remains to determine how many people they belong to and seek to establish their identities.

More than 115,000 people are listed as missing in Mexico, according to the country’s National Registry of Missing and Disappeared Persons.

Mexico’s disappearance crisis is closely linked to organized crime violence, institutional complicity or inaction and high levels of impunity, which have overwhelmed the country’s forensic services.

Amid limited government resources, hundreds of search collectives have emerged across Mexico. Made up primarily of mothers and other relatives of missing people, their members often risk their lives searching clandestine graves and suspected extermination sites in an effort to find their loved ones.

Last season’s runners-up, Arsenal, will play the likes of Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Lille in the league phase.

Two-time defending champions Paris Saint-Germain were handed meetings with Barcelona, Manchester City and Aston Villa, among their eight matches in the league phase of this season’s Champions League, when the draw took place on Thursday.

PSG, who beat Arsenal on penalties in Budapest in May to retain the trophy, will play Barcelona, Roma, Turkish champions Galatasaray and Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia at home.

Luis Enrique’s team will travel to England twice to face City and Villa. They beat both teams on the way to winning their first Champions League title in 2025, and also defeated the latter in the UEFA Super Cup in Austria earlier this month.

The French champions will also go to Spain to play Villarreal and Italy to take on a Como side coached by Cesc Fabregas.

“I can’t say anything bad about the Champions League, but I won’t be watching the draw. I will be relaxing and going out on my bike, then we’ll take a look at the menu. But I would sign up for the same result as in the last two years,” Luis Enrique told reporters earlier Thursday.

PSG are aiming to become European champions for a third straight year, something only the Real Madrid of 2016 to 2018 have achieved in the last 50 years.

The first matches in this season’s league phase will be played between Tuesday, September 8 and Thursday, September 10, with the final games in late January. UEFA is expected to announce the full fixture schedule on Saturday.

Last season’s runners-up, Arsenal, the Premier League champions, will notably host Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Lille, as well as Sabah, the club from Azerbaijan who came through four two-legged qualifying ties to reach the league phase for the first time.

The Gunners have a tough list of away ties against Bayern Munich, Real Betis, Napoli and Slavia Prague.

Fenerbahce back, Viking in

Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool will be at home to Atletico Madrid, Porto, Villarreal and Lens, while playing Inter Milan, Club Brugge, Fenerbahce and Austrian league phase debutants LASK away.

Manchester United, who were not in the first pot of seeds, have home games against Bayern, Roma, RB Leipzig and Sabah, and also a series of difficult away fixtures against Atletico, Sporting of Portugal, Villarreal and Como.

Other notable games include Manchester City visiting Barcelona and Real Madrid entertaining Inter, while last season’s Europa League winners, Villa, must go to Barcelona and play Dortmund at home. Unai Emery’s team will also tackle Istanbul giants Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.

The latter are appearing in the Champions League proper for the first time since 2008/09 after beating Lyon in the playoffs this week.

New names in this season’s competition are Como, who have upset the traditional order in Serie A, and Sabah, while LASK made it to this stage for the first time after a stunning comeback win over Celtic in the playoffs.

Last year’s Norwegian champions Viking, from the city of Stavanger, have reached the Champions League proper for the first time, too, and they have a glamorous fixture schedule that includes Bayern, Atletico, Villa and Napoli.

This is the third season since the introduction of the new format for the Champions League, with 36 teams now all pooled together in one giant league and each playing games against eight different opponents.

This season’s final will be played at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid on June 5, 2027.

Ratko Mladic, a war criminal convicted over the first genocide on European soil since the second world war, has died prison in The Hague at the age of 84.

Earlier this year, Serbia requested that Mladic be allowed to receive medical treatment outside prison, saying his health condition was “serious” and that he “required serious medical treatment”.

The United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said that Mladic was receiving adequate medical care while in detention.

Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic was one of the best-known and most notorious military commanders of the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

International courts convicted him of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was sentenced to life in prison

The most notorious part of his criminal legacy is linked to the genocide in Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Serbia.

Bosnian Serb forces under Mladic’s command seized Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the UN declaring the municipality a “safe area”. After the enclave fell, more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were killed by Mladic’s forces in the days that followed.

Some of the civilians were captured and executed at locations in and around Srebrenica. Others were killed after attempting to flee through the forests towards territory controlled by the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The bodies of victims were later discovered in numerous mass graves, while many were identified years after the war. The remains of around 1,000 victims are still being sought. International courts established that the killings constituted genocide.

Srebrenica has remained a symbol of one of the gravest crimes committed in Europe since the second world war.

From the Yugoslav army to commander of the army of Republika Srpska

Mladic was born in the village of Bozanovici near Kalinovik, about 40km (25 miles) south of Sarajevo.

He began his military career in the Yugoslav People’s army and gradually rose through the military’s command structure.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in the spring of 1992, following Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnian Serbs established their own political and military structures and proclaimed Republika Srpska, which controlled territory covering roughly half of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time.

In May 1992, Mladic was appointed commander of the Republika Srpska’s army. Over the next three and a half years, he sought to seize parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled by the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the capital Sarajevo, devastating areas in his path. However, his forces failed to achieve major territorial gains in several key areas.

The political and military leadership of Republika Srpska sought to separate Serb-controlled territories from Bosnia and Herzegovina and create a separate, territorially contiguous Serb state within the country. Republika Srpska would formally become one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s two entities under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

Mladic’s forces were involved in a large number of atrocities across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to the Srebrenica genocide, international courts found Mladic responsible for a campaign of terror against Sarajevo’s civilian population, the hostage-taking of UN peacekeepers and other crimes.

The Siege of Sarajevo

Sarajevo was surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces for almost 44 months. From positions on the surrounding hills, they shelled the city and used snipers against its residents.

More than 11,500 people from all ethnic groups were killed, while many others were wounded or displaced.

The Sarajevo Siege, which Mladic directed, became one of the defining episodes of the Bosnian war and one of the longest sieges of a capital city in modern history.

After the war ended in 1995, Mladic evaded arrest and spent almost 16 years in hiding. He became one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives accused of war crimes.

He was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 in the village of Lazarevo, near Zrenjanin, at the home of a relative. Several days later, he was transferred to The Hague, where his trial began before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

His arrest was one of the key conditions set by the international community for Serbia’s progress towards closer relations with the European Union. Belgrade faced political and financial pressure from Western countries to cooperate with the tribunal and transfer Mladic to The Hague.

In 2017, the tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment. The courts established his individual criminal responsibility for a number of crimes.

Mladic in Serbia

Although his convictions were final, Mladic continues to have support among sections of the Serbian public and political circles in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Banja Luka, Belgrade and other areas with predominantly Serb populations, murals depicting him can still be seen. Some members of the public continue to portray him as a military hero rather than a convicted war criminal.

That attitude towards Mladic is part of a broader problem of confronting the legacy of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While international courts have established facts concerning the genocide and other crimes, political and social divisions over the country’s wartime past remain deeply entrenched.

Denial of the Srebrenica genocide and the glorification of convicted war criminals remain serious problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to data from the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, 149 cases of public denial of the Srebrenica genocide were recorded during the first quarter of 2026, including statements by public figures. That represents an increase compared with 2025, when 99 such cases were recorded.

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in May 2024 establishing July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.

The resolution was intended to preserve the memory of the victims and promote a culture of remembrance, while also reaffirming the importance of confronting genocide denial and preventing the recurrence of such crimes.

Violence has eased since the US-Iran MoU and Israel-Lebanon framework, but Beirut still reports attacks and demolitions.

A Lebanese woman has been killed, and several other people injured by Israeli strikes on the town of Arab Salim, in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh district.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said six people were wounded in the attacks on Thursday, including a child, a woman and two elderly people, while the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that the woman who died “had been married for 48 hours”.

The newlywed woman’s house was also destroyed in the attack, NNA said.

Lebanese security sources said at least 10 Israeli strikes had been carried out in the wider Nabatieh area. NNA also reported artillery shelling targeting the outskirts of the town of Rashaf in the Bint Jbeil district.

The Israeli military claimed it was targeting Hezbollah after the Iran-backed group struck its soldiers in the south overnight. The army said it struck Hezbollah “weapon storage facilities”.

“Israel targeted the town of Arab Salim in the Nabatieh governorate. It targeted a residential area,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut about the deadly strike.

“The Israeli army says it is hitting infrastructure, and that this is in retaliation for Hezbollah launching armed drones at its forces in the Ali al-Taher ridge overnight.

“It’s not the first time the Israeli army accuses Hezbollah of targeting its forces in this area, which overlooks the city of Nabatieh’s strategic high ground, which really remains contested territory. We know that the Israeli army wants Hezbollah to vacate this area, so we’re seeing this increase in military pressure,” she said.

According to Israel, Iran-backed fighters “launched two explosive drones” towards Israeli soldiers operating in the Ali al-Taher ridge, but there were no casualties.

Israel has stepped up its strikes on south Lebanon in recent days, following an August 15 wave of strikes that Lebanon said killed 11 people, including several children. Israel’s military said the raids were retaliation for a Hezbollah attack.

Al Jazeera’s Khodr said that while “there has been a reduction in the violence in recent days, we have also witnessed an escalation by the Israeli army”.

“There is growing concern that the [Israeli] army may broaden this offensive, and it may become even more intense,” she added.

Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have been escalating since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in 2023. Lebanon was dragged into the conflict on March 2, days after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. Hezbollah struck Israel in support of Tehran. This was followed by massive Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion that Lebanese authorities say have killed more than 4,300 people.

The continued strikes have renewed debate in Beirut over the “framework” agreement Lebanon signed with Israel in June, which envisages a phased Israeli withdrawal in exchange for the deployment of the Lebanese army and the disarmament of armed groups, a reference to Hezbollah.

European football’s governing body considers making a criminal complaint ​against Infantino over World Cup selloff plans.

UEFA has asked ⁠a US ⁠federal court for permission to obtain testimony and documents from FIFA entities in ⁠Florida for use in a planned criminal complaint in Switzerland against FIFA President ⁠Gianni Infantino, according to a court filing.

In an ex parte application filed under US law, European football’s governing body said it is considering ‌criminal proceedings against Infantino and potentially other FIFA officials and advisers over a now-abandoned plan to transfer commercial rights linked to men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup into a new ⁠subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE).

“UEFA is actively considering legal action arising out of and in connection with the … plan proposed by FIFA,” read the legal document filed in a Florida court in the United States, according to the AFP news agency.

“More specifically, UEFA and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code.”

UEFA ⁠alleges Infantino developed the proposal in secret with a small group of advisers and investors, bypassing FIFA’s normal ⁠governance processes and failing to consult the FIFA Council, regional confederations ⁠or member associations.

The filing asks ⁠a US court to authorise discovery from FIFA (AMERICAS), Inc. and FWC2026 US, Inc., two Florida-based FIFA entities. UEFA ‌said the organisations may possess documents and witnesses relevant to how the FFE transaction ‌was ‌conceived, structured, valued and approved.

Aug. 27 (UPI) — The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden wrote the European Commission urging it to kickstart a stalled plan to use Russian assets frozen in Europe’s banks and clearing houses to plug a $26.8 billion gap in Ukraine’s defense funding.

The letter to the EU’s top foreign policy chief on Thursday calling for another look at ways to tap into the $244.5 billion of assets came ahead of an informal meeting of foreign ministers being hosted by Ireland on Sept. 1-2, according to Politico, The Kyiv Independent and The Financial Times.

“Ukraine needs more financial support in both the short and long term. We believe now is the time to revert to the issue of how we can make further use of Russia’s immobilized assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” reads the letter, which was addessed to Kaja Kallas and Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee.

The call comes three months after the Netherlands raised the issue at a closed-door meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, arguing that a deal agreed in December for a conditional $105 billion loan over 18 months, would not be enough to keep Ukraine afloat for long.

Efforts back then to leverage frozen Russian assets — the largest portion of which are held in Belgium — were sidelined amid objections from the Belgian government and other EU member states.

The so-called “reparations loan” option, where the assets would be used as surety in the event Russia failed to pay war reparations to Ukraine required to recoup the loan, lacked the votes for the required two-thirds majority of EU states.

What the bloc ultimately finalized in April, was a back-up proposal under which the EU would use its budget to borrow in the international debt markets — with skeptics Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic backing the measure only on condition they would not be on the hook financially.

Wednesday’s letter acknowledges the complexity of the issue but urges policy experts in Brussels to look at alternate solutions that “ensure that the risk rests with all EU Member States and where no Member State holds a disproportionate burden.”

“Now is the time to start a new discussion about how we can make further use of Russia’s frozen assets for Ukraine’s, and our, benefit,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told the Financial Times.

Four people claiming familiarity with the letter said it requested the commission revist the issue of the frozen assets and sought an uddate on the formulation of legal and technical tools to get around the veto wielded by Belgium.

Last time around, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said his opposition was due to Russian legal and economic threats against Belgium, and him personally, and that he needed guarantees that other EU states would share the risks Belgium could be exposed to.

A person familiar with the matter said the Belgian government’s concerns over possible retaliation through the courts and erosion of trust financial markets had not diminished.

In a speech Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the EU to accelerate the pace of loan tranche transfers, saying that even with the money the country was facing a $26.8 deficit in 2026.

That prompted the EU to point to an additional $25.7 billion already approved, $16.8 billion of which had been provided, and call on other Western partners to follow its lead.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its approval of Rasonque, a new treatment option for people with advanced pancreatic cancer.

A tablet taken once a day, the medication targets forms of a protein called RAS, which is a key driver of tumor growth in many patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the most common form of the cancer, the FDA said. This form of cancer develops in cells lining the ducts of the pancreas.

“Today’s approval provides a critical new option for patients facing an extraordinarily difficult and historically hard-to-treat cancer,” said Kyle Diamantas, acting commissioner of the FDA. “It is our fundamental duty to deliver more cures and meaningful treatments to patients as quickly as possible.”

A press release from the FDA said the approval demonstrates the agency’s “commitment to moving with urgency, reducing unnecessary delays and advancing innovative treatments.”

Rasonque has been approved for adults who have metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma who have received at one least one prior systemic therapy or those who are not candidates for multiagent systemic therapy.

About 90% to 95% of the new cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed in the United States each year are this form, the FDA said, citing the National Cancer Institute. Johns Hopkins Medicine also said “the vast majority” of pancreatic cancer diagnoses are this form.

In a clinical trial, the new treatment improved median overall survival to 13.2 months from 6.7 months with standard chemotherapy, the FDA said.

“This drug showed unprecedented results in an area of high unmet need,” said Angelo de Claro, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence.

The agency granted this approval to Revolution Medicines Inc.

Aug. 27 (UPI) — The family of King Harald V of Norway gathered at his bedside in an Oslo hospital on Thursday with the Royal Household saying the 89-year-old’s condition was “extremely serious.”

Royal family members were seen arriving by car at Oslo University Hospital, including daughter-in-law Crown Princess Mette-Marit, with Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon canceling all royal engagements.

Norwegian media reported that Princess Astrid, Harald’s sister, was also in attendance.

NRK, the state-owned broadcast network, said the people of Norway should brace for “the worst.”

“The whole nation is with us as we send warm thoughts to the king and the rest of the royal family,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in a statement.

The king has been hospitalized for the past 10 days due to complications related to haemolytic anaemia, a rare blood condition where red blood cell attrition exceeds the rate at which they can be replaced, causing fatigue and breathing difficulties.

His condition unexpectedly worsened on Monday and deteriorated still further overnight.

The king has been hit by succession of health issues dating back to 2024 when he had a pacemaker fitted after being taken ill in Malaysia during a holiday, leading to him partially stepping back from royal duties in line with his advanced agee, including a “permanent reduction” in his public engagements.”

He was hospitalized for an infection and dehydration in February during a private visit to Tenerife with Queen Sonja, who is also 89.

His son, Prince Haakon, 53, is next in line in the succession.

There has never been any hint Harald might abdicate to allow Prince Haakon to take over, having long argued that the oath he took before the Norwegian Parliament when he ascended the throne in 1991 was for life.

SEOUL, Aug. 27 (UPI) — North Korea on Thursday condemned U.S. approval of a possible $125 million sale of Sidewinder missiles and related equipment to South Korea, warning of a “serious, immediate and powerful response.”

In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the proposed sale and other recent U.S. actions “hostile moves adversely affecting the security environment of the DPRK and the regional situation.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

The spokesperson cited last week’s U.S. State Department approval of a possible sale of 103 AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II tactical missiles, 10 tactical guidance units and related equipment to South Korea.

The statement also pointed to U.S. approvals this year involving naval helicopters, attack helicopter upgrades and precision-guided munitions.

In May, the State Department approved a possible $3 billion sale of 24 MH-60R multi-mission helicopters and a $1.2 billion upgrade package for South Korea’s AH-64E Apache attack helicopters. It approved a possible $106 million sale of Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits and related equipment in June.

The sales are “encouraging the ROK to boost its capability to fight a war,” the spokesperson said, using the official acronym for South Korea.

“Now that the military integration of the U.S. and its allies is being accelerated in the Asia-Pacific region, we cannot overlook the adverse effect of the U.S. sale of its weapons to the ROK on the regional security environment,” the spokesperson said.

The statement also criticized a State Department funding initiative announced last week that would provide up to $2.96 million for projects documenting human rights abuses in North Korea and countering Pyongyang’s propaganda and influence operations.

The spokesperson called the initiative a “human rights smear campaign” aimed at creating instability in North Korea’s political system.

The DPRK “will make a serious, immediate and powerful response to the hostile acts in different spheres,” the spokesperson said.

The statement comes as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes to restart direct diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump last week abruptly ordered the United States and South Korea to curtail their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise, citing its cost and saying the drills sent an “inappropriate and hostile” signal to Pyongyang.

North Korea has so far shown little inclination to engage, however. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, said last week that Pyongyang had “no interest” in the reduction of the drills.

“If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get desired answer,” she said.

Kim Jong Un led a key ruling party meeting this week but made no mention of Trump’s overtures, according to a report Wednesday by KCNA.

Aug. 27 (UPI) — At least two people were killed and 10 were injured, after a car was driven into a crowd near a train station in Normandy in northern France.

Seven of the injured were in a critical condition in the hospital after the vehicle allegedlly srruck the group of people in the city of Caen late Wednesday evening on purpose, following an altercation, local authoritiies said.

Calvados department prefect David Clavière said the car “deliberately drove into pedestrians in the street opposite the train station.”

A fight had broken out between two groups of men immediately prior to the incident, according to witnesses.

A major emergency response was mounted across the wider Normandy region, leading to the arrest of a 26-year-old Russian-born male suspect in Ouistreham, a port on the Normandy coast.

The deputy prosecutor and police said terrorism had, for now, been ruled out.

“For the moment, we are not dealing with a terrorist motive, but the investigation is only just beginning,” said the city’s deputy mayor with responsibility for security, Bruno Coutanceau.

The incident came a month after a car attack on a Pride parade in Berlin that killed at least one person and injured many more and nine months after 10 people were injured, two critically, when a man purposely drove into pedestrians and cyclists on the French holiday island of Oléron.

Aug. 27 (UPI) — A divided federal appeals court has ruled that Rep. LaMonica McIver is not immune from prosecution on charges stemming from a confrontation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outside a federal immigration detention facility in 2025.

The New Jersey Democrat was charged with three federal counts of impeding and interfering with federal immigration officers over alleged conduct on May 9, 2025, as they were attempting to arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka during an unannounced congressional oversight inspection of Delaney Hall Federal Immigration Facility.

McIver denies the allegations and has sought their dismissal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled 2-1 Wednesday that two of the three charges against McIver may proceed to trial, while the third was sent back to a lower court for reconsideration.

McIver said she disagrees with the ruling and was “exploring” her options.

“To protect the people, their elected representatives must be authorized to conduct oversight of the executive branch without fear of retaliation,” McIver said in a statement.

“Today’s decision chills that authority and emboldens the Trump administration to continue persecuting our most vulnerable communities, those who try to defend them and anyone who dares hold the president or his lackeys accountable.

“I will not fold to this administration,” she continued. “The administration will not stop me from doing my job or standing for what is right. This is not over.”

Federal prosecutors charged McIver in a three-count indictment in June 2025, a month after the incident at Delaney Hall.

According to the court document, she and two other members of Congress were at the facility to conduct an unannounced congressional oversight inspection of the facility as a protest was occurring outside against the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

After arriving at the facility, Baraka entered but was informed by a federal officer he was not authorized to be there, according to federal prosecutors, who said McIver prevented the federal officers from arresting the mayor, who was allegedly given multiple warnings to leave.

Outside the facility, McIver allegedly placed herself in front of Baraka and wrapped her arms around him to prevent his arrest. During the situation she is accused of having “slammed her forearm into the body of one law enforcement officer,” whom she also allegedly tried to retrain by grabbing him.

Court documents also accuse her of striking a second officer with both of her forearms.

Video of the incident posted online shows a chaotic scene that day outside the facility.

Baraka was eventually arrested and charged with trespassing, though the case against him was later dropped.

McIver moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing it violated the Speech or Debate Clause and the constitutional principle of separation of powers as well as under selective prosecution and enforcement claims, while also arguing selective and vindictive prosecution and enforcement.

All three counts accuse her of forcibly assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with federal officers. However, the appeals court sent count three back to the lower court to review whether it includes conduct that can be considered legislative acts.

While counts one and two identify specifics act, count three encompasses a range of alleged conduct over a broad time frame, both inside and outside the facility, the court said.

Numerous Democrats came to McIver’s defense, arguing it is an attack on congressional oversight.

“Donald Trump wants Congressmembers to fall in line & not conduct oversight of detention centers,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts said in a statement.

“And he wants to make an example out of @RepLaMonica. But we’re not letting up.”

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill similarly said that she continues to stand with her friend.

“Trump weaponizing the Department of Justice to target members of Congress simply for doing their jobs is straight out of his corruption playbook,” she said in an online statement.

“It’s a brazen and unlawful abuse of power, and a direct attack on congressional oversight.”

OpenAI detected its artificial intelligence models communicating with each other and gaining internet access without authorisation months before they hacked the start-up Hugging Face, the creator of ChatGPT has announced following an internal probe.

In a report released on Wednesday, OpenAI said its AI agents exploited vulnerabilities in Artifactory, a software repository tool, to post notes and access the internet without human prompting as far back as May.

OpenAI said its agents went on to exploit a separate Artifactory vulnerability on July 8 to facilitate communication among themselves, setting in motion a chain of actions that culminated in the July 11 attack on AI company Hugging Face.

OpenAI’s findings come amid growing concern about the potential for AI to inflict serious real-world harm, including self-directed cyberattacks.

OpenAI said in its report that its agents collaborated and delegated work in the lead-up to the attack, sometimes referring to themselves as a “swarm” or “collective”.

METR and Redwood Research, two security research organisations contracted by OpenAI to investigate the incident, said in a separate report released on Wednesday that about 1200 agents had communicated with each other and roughly 700 participated in the attack.

After discovering how to escape OpenAI’s controlled environment, agents shared their methods via a “inter-agent message board”, enabling additional agents to exploit the company’s infrastructure, the tech giant said.

When one AI agent found Hugging Face user credentials that had been exposed online, it shared them with the group, enabling an agent to “discover and chain together several security exploits” that provided access to Hugging Face’s severs, according to the report.

“An internal team observed an agent engaging in message board activity and instances of disallowed internet access as early as late May, and with the benefit of hindsight, some early signals identified in our report should have triggered an earlier response,” OpenAI said.

OpenAI said agents created by an unreleased AI model were the primary participants in the attack, but publicly available GPT-5.6 Sol was also involved.

The company also revealed that it took its security team 11 days to detect the malign activities leading up to the attack, which the company uncovered on July 19 and publicly disclosed on July 21.

OpenAI, which described the incident as a “warning shot” for the world, said it would take several steps to strengthen its safeguards for its models, including restricting internet access, creating more secure testing environments and placing “stricter requirements on alignment throughout a model’s lifecycle”.

“We are also investing significantly more compute resources into chain-of-thought monitoring⁠ to more quickly intervene on misaligned behavior,” the San Francisco-based firm said.

Hugging Face, which operates a platform for hosting open-source AI models, did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of business hours.

Toby Walsh, an expert in AI and professor at UNSW Sydney, said the public should be concerned that OpenAI had missed warning signs and allowed the malicious activity to go undetected for so long.

“We cannot depend on either their goodwill or their competence. This needs regulatory oversight. Now!” Walsh told Al Jazeera.

“They ignored some troubling early evidence like this,” Walsh said.

“External auditing is the only appropriate response.”

Walsh said the incident also highlighted the “inherent conflict of interest” at the heart of AI development.

“Labs are locked in a relentless race to push the boundaries,” he said.

Tim Miller, a professor specialising in AI at the University of Queensland, said OpenAI’s report left him more concerned than before about AI’s dangers.

“More concerned because they demonstrate that these models are very good at hacking, and that everyone has access to them,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

“I’m surprised how good these are,” Miller said.

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that OpenAI engineers were somewhat negligent.”

Farah, Mohammed and Jawad are getting ready for the new school year in Masafer Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank.

The children, aged 17, 8, and 7 respectively, attend Shaab al-Butum school in a village with the same name. But the building they’ll return to will be missing two administrative rooms and a storage room after Israeli forces demolished them on August 4.

According to the United Nations, Israel justified the demolitions by saying that the structures were constructed without Israeli-issued building permits. These are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain in the Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under Israeli administrative and military control.

The rest of the school isn’t safe either – it has also been threatened with demolition, with a court case scheduled for September 15.

The children’s return to education is now uncertain, as they worry about losing the village’s only school completely, and more confrontations with Israeli forces.

Constant fear

The start of the academic year at the beginning of September is supposed to mean a return to learning, but enthusiasm in Shaab al-Butum has now been mixed with anxiety.

Farah explained to Al Jazeera that the school was the only one she had ever attended, and was fearful about what would now happen.

Mohammed echoed that fear and said that he was worried Israeli forces would “return to demolish what remains” of the school. Jawad, meanwhile, spoke of his sadness at seeing the school damaged and said he hoped it could “return as it was”.

For Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta local council, those concerns reflect a much wider threat facing education across the area, which has repeatedly been targeted by the Israeli state and settlers over the years. Masafer Yatta was declared part of a closed Israeli military firing zone in the 1980s, which has been used as justification in repeated attempts to force local Palestinians out.

“It is a test renewed with every school year, amidst unprecedented escalation by the occupation authorities,” Younis told Al Jazeera.

“This year comes amid the tightening of the occupation’s policy of demolishing schools, and rampant settler violence that targets everything in these villages,” he added.

That violence, Younis said, follows children throughout their daily lives, targeting “students going to their schools, students while in class, and even inside the home”.

According to Younis, all seven schools in the wider Masafer Yatta area are now threatened with demolition.

“We do not know whether these schools will survive to the end of this academic year, let alone still be standing when the next one begins,” he said, stressing the determination of local Palestinians to stay “despite the pain and [Israeli] barbarism”.

Settler violence

Activist and teacher Tariq Hathaleen said the uncertainty surrounding demolitions, coupled with the continued expansion of settlement outposts, had deepened the sense of insecurity among residents.

“The occupation authorities do not usually tell the residents or the school administration in advance when the bulldozers will arrive,” Hathaleen told Al Jazeera.

Hathaleen added that settlers had stormed Ras Ein al-Auja school in the Jordan Valley the previous academic year, assaulting staff and students.

The attack and the demolition confirmed that schools are “no longer immune from attack”, Hathaleen said.

“[Israel’s actions] do not target merely one aspect, but affects education, housing, freedom of movement and livelihoods,” Hathaleen explained.

Hathaleen described the targeted schools – built by the Palestinian Ministry of Education to serve marginalised areas – as “more than just educational buildings”.

Systematic pattern

Figures from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission underscore the scale of the threat, with 84 Palestinian schools serving nearly 13,000 students currently facing Israeli demolition or stop-work orders.

Amir Dawoud, a senior official with the commission, said the schools facing the most immediate legal threats were concentrated in the southern Hebron area, particularly Masafer Yatta, as well as at al-Walaja school near Bethlehem, which Israel says lacks a building permit.

“These are not schools that can simply be closed and their students easily transferred elsewhere,” Dawoud told Al Jazeera.

The impact of demolition orders, he said, begins long before any building is actually destroyed, creating uncertainty and disruption for students, teachers, and their families.

“The psychological and educational impact begins before the bulldozer arrives,” he said.

“It is a systematic pattern that transcends individual cases,” Dawoud added, noting that it starts with planning restrictions, accompanied by road restrictions and settler attacks.

“It does not only threaten school buildings,” he said. “It targets the ability of Palestinian communities to survive.”

Aug. 26 (UPI) — The Justice Department and FBI announced Wednesday that they seized two platforms used to target U.S. critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks.

The seizures were of two hacking platforms called QScan and QTRouter, which were used to hack U.S. infrastructure sites, the press release said. The affidavit described a Chinese state-sponsored group known as QTFY whose members are employed by China-based Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company that has hacked into NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Senate.

“Federal law enforcement investigated and disabled [China’s] malicious software, the latest in a series of technical operations to dismantle indiscriminate hacking activities sponsored by the People’s Republic of China,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

“These court-authorized seizures deny [China]-linked hackers access to tools they use to mount online attacks against our Nation’s critical infrastructure,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in a statement.

According to court documents, QTFY offers computer hacking services to its paying customers, including China’s army and Ministry of State Security. These computer hacking services include QScan and QTRouter, which work in conjunction, the press release said.

QScan scans and automatically infects thousands of internet-of-things devices worldwide, which are then added to the QTRouter network of QTFY-controlled devices. QTRouter consists of these compromised IoT devices, as well as commercial proxy service devices and leased virtual private servers. QTRouter then serves as an obfuscation network — meaning it allows QTFY and other malicious cyber actors to conceal the China-origin of their computer intrusion activities because the malicious communications appear to originate from computers that are outside of China and may even be local to the targeted networks.

Because the seized domains were hard-coded into the QScan and QTRouter malware and used for essential tasks such as communication and authentication, the court-authorized seizures made QScan and QTRouter inoperable.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani is due to visit Tehran on Thursday for talks on de-escalating tensions and reviving dialogue between Iran and the United States.

A spokesman for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the visit in a statement on X on Wednesday.

Majed al-Ansari said Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister, will meet with “a number of Iranian officials” in Tehran to “discuss ways to de-escalate tensions” and “create the conditions conducive to dialogue”.

“The visit comes in line with the State of Qatar’s firm position that the diplomatic path is the best means of resolving differences & promoting security & stability in the region,” he added.

Iran also confirmed the visit, saying the discussions will cover “the continuation of Qatar’s mediation efforts and initiatives, as well as other regional developments”.

Qatar has served as a back-channel negotiator between Washington and Tehran and helped secure a memorandum of understanding in June that briefly paused hostilities. The agreement collapsed in July, and the conflict is now nearing its sixth month, with fighting largely paused but no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.

The US has, meanwhile, promised to increase economic pressure on Tehran by sanctioning its trade partners.

US President Donald Trump told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that he was in “no hurry” to resume talks with Iran, saying that he believed economic and military action against Tehran were both effective.

“I have no time schedule; whatever it takes,” he said.

‘Economic terrorism’

Iran has continued to denounce the economic pressure campaign.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote to the United Nations on Wednesday calling the new sanctions an “act of state and economic terrorism” and urging member states not to implement them.

“The sanctions deliberately harm civilians by restricting access to food, medicine, medical equipment, energy and other essentials, violating rights including the rights to life, health, food and an adequate standard of living”, he said.

The two sides also remain at odds over the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that handled one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the US-Israel war on Iran began in February.

Iran wants control over the strait, while the US wants it to remain an international waterway that is free for all. That disagreement in part led to the collapse of the memorandum signed in June.

Oil flows through the strait have since fallen to a three-month low, with just 5 million barrels per day (bpd) transiting on Monday. Before the war, the strait carried roughly 20 million bpd of crude oil.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said Sheikh Mohammed will also discuss the waterway in his meetings in Tehran on Thursday, focusing on “the need for it to return to the status quo prior to February 28”.

Regional diplomacy

Sheikh Mohammed’s visit comes two days after Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi met his Iranian counterpart, Araghchi, in Tehran.

Following those talks, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the two countries had agreed on a new temporary route for shipping in the strait.

But he insisted that the waterway will not reopen until the US fulfils its commitments under the June deal, including the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, also visited Tehran earlier in the week in a bid to “end the stalemate” in the conflict, with Islamabad reporting “significant progress” in those talks.

Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Tehran, said that regional countries were pushing for dialogue because “they believe that the situation is moving towards escalation”.

“They know that if war breaks out, it would be a fully-fledged war and the fire would spill over into the entire region and beyond, leaving a detrimental impact on the global economy,” he said. “So there are hectic diplomatic moves on the part of these countries.”

Aug. 26 (UPI) — Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to 48 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories on Wednesday, in settlements resolving lawsuits over the mental health risks its social media platforms pose to children as well as spearate privacy claims.

Court filings state that the settlements, pending judicial approval, include payments of $16.68 billion to 51 U.S. jurisdictions, more than $1 billion to Texas and another $459 million to 46 states, Puerto Rico and Northern Mariana Islands to resolve privacy claims tied to the 2018 Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

The filings also state that Meta must implement safeguards on its platform for minors, including limits on daily use, blocking access at night, more parental tools, stricter age-assurance standards, the hiding of likes on posts and banning cosmetic-procedure filters, among other measures.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his state may receive between $1.5 billion and $2.1 billion in the settlement.

“Today, we have secured a settlement with Meta that will make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of difference for children and their families,” Bonta said in a statement. “Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms — and will do it within months.”

Meta said that 70% of the funds will be distributed over a 10-year period, with the remaining 30% to be released only after Alphabet-owned YouTube and ByteDance’s TikTok implement a one-hour dayily limit, night mode and age-assurance measures as well as each pay a matching $5.3 billion.

The Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta said the structure was designed to enforce an industry-wide adoption of the measures it has agreed to and ensure teens receive the same level of protection across major social media platforms.

“Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away,” C.J. Mahoney, chief legal officer at Meta, said in a statement.

As part of the settlement, all parties, including Meta, waive all rights to appeal the final judgment.

“The focus of this case was to protect our kids: stopping notifications and alerts at night and when they are in school, encouraging them to take breaks from social media, protecting them against harmful features,” Phil Weiser, Colorado attorney general, said in a statement.

The cases brought by U.S. states are among several across the globe investigating social media companies over the harms they pose to children. Elsewhere, countries, such as Australia, have implemented age restrictions and called for the end to addictive features that encourage compulsive use, such as endless scrolling.

Meta still faces additional lawsuits in the United States still. Several school districts and individuals have filed lawsuits against Meta and other social media platforms for contributing to mental health problems among children.

Abuja, Nigeria – Khamila Sani Ibrahim remembers growing up in Kano State in northern Nigeria, where opportunities for girls to play organised sport were limited and seeing girls on the basketball court was uncommon.

When visiting her grandparents during school holidays, she had to find ways to fit basketball around family expectations.

“It is very hard for me to train in basketball,” Ibrahim said. “I only go out to play when they are not around, or I tell them that I’m going to visit my friends, and from there I go to the court.”

Across northern Nigerian communities, sports such as basketball and football have historically been viewed as male-dominated spaces. For girls who want to play, the obstacles can include limited access to courts and equipment, a shortage of coaching and funding, and fewer chances to compete.

Finding a place on the court

Now, through Grassroots To Greatness (G2G), an initiative dedicated to female empowerment in sports, girls are finding opportunities to train, compete and develop their skills.

Jawahir Bello, a youth sports advocate, founded the initiative after seeing how few opportunities were available to girls in the region.

At tournaments, players wear custom hijabs, long sports vests and athletic tights.

“Our core value is about participating in sports without doing anything that goes against our cultural values or our identity as Muslims,” Bello told Al Jazeera. “Whether you put on a hijab or innerwear under your jersey, modesty is key. You come out modest, decent and fully covered.”

Although she anticipated resistance from some communities when launching female-only tournaments and community training sessions, Bello said she has been encouraged by community stakeholders who have welcomed the initiative.

To mobilise participants, G2G partners directly with local grassroots coaches who already run community teams on the ground.

A tournament of their own

When Ibrahim represented Kano State in a multi-state G2G tournament featuring female players from up to nine different states, she found herself in an environment unlike the male-dominated local teams she had previously played with, where girls were often underestimated.

“What G2G did for us was incredible,” Ibrahim said. “They provided jerseys, custom hijabs, basketballs, cover for our transport and even financial stipends for all the teams, regardless of who won or lost. It made us feel seen and valued.”

Fatima Diouf, another young player based in Abuja, started playing basketball at her school when she was 11. She joined the G2G programme to test her skills against tougher competition. Though her team fell short of the finals, she left with lessons she says will stay with her.

“I have learned a lot beyond just basketball. I learned teamwork, confidence, discipline and how to keep improving,” Fatima told Al Jazeera.

The struggle beyond the court

For Ibrahim, getting time on the court is still not always easy. She has had to push past self-doubt and the dismissive attitude of male peers who assumed girls could not compete at the same level. She also struggles to balance intense training with domestic chores and schoolwork.

Mansur Abdullahi, assistant coach of Nigeria’s U-20 women’s national football team, the Falconets, says grassroots coaches and organisations can help create opportunities for young athletes that larger sports structures may not reach.

“Official sports bodies have big structures, but local groups provide the actual trust and cultural understanding,” he said. “So it’s only through community-led initiatives that more professional teams will understand what’s acceptable for girls and boys and how to frame sports so it fits the existing values instead of clashing with them.”

Dreaming of the next level

For many participants, the tournaments are a chance to test themselves against new opponents and think about what could come next.

Before joining G2G, Ibrahim’s father had reservations about whether competitive sports would compromise family standards. But once he attended her games and saw the athletic wear and the structured environment of the initiative, he became one of her biggest supporters.

“I want to secure a college sports scholarship in the United States and eventually turn professional. More than that, I want other Muslim girls across northern Nigeria to see that sports build your health, strength, and confidence, and that nothing should hold you back from chasing your dreams,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera.

Seeing the network of coaches, stakeholders and organisers at the tournament also broadened Diouf’s perspective and allowed her to imagine playing across Africa.

For G2G, the ambition goes beyond organising female-only tournaments. Bello wants the programme to show girls there is a place for them in sport and that they can compete without feeling that they have to give up who they are.

“You can keep your identity, stay covered and still achieve something in life,” Bello said.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — Testimony ended Wednesday in Lindsay Clancy’s triple-murder trial, with closing arguments set to begin Thursday.

Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the killings of her three children, ages 5, 3 and 8 months, at their Duxbury, Mass., home in January 2023. She pleaded not guilty.

The defense has argued that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible because of extreme mental health issues, including postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors say she deliberately killed the children. A panel of 12 jurors is expected to start deliberations after closing arguments.

An FBI psychiatrist, Dr. Gregory Saathoff, was the final witness Wednesday. He said Clancy could still appreciate right from wrong when she killed the children and noted her planning for it, CNN reported. Clancy sent her husband out for takeout before the killings and then attempted to take her own life, cutting her wrists and neck and jumping out a second-floor window. She was paralyzed by the fall.

“The fact that this was done without any witness present during a time where she had asked a potential witness to go on a longer errand — also I thought was significant,” Saathoff said.

The jury will have the choice of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter charges. If Clancy is found guilty, she will face life in prison. If she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will likely be committed to a mental health facility.

The prosecution called more than 70 witnesses during the trial, while the defense called 10. Clancy’s defense included testimony from friends and family members who called her an “incredible” mother.

Clancy, who worked as a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, sought treatment for her mental health issues and was prescribed more than a dozen psychiatric medications on and off over several months. Both sides called psychiatric experts to testify during the trial.

The international body declared Uganda Ebola-free after 42 days without any new transmission, though cases are rising in DR Congo.

Uganda has been declared free of Ebola, with the World Health Organization (WHO) confirming that the East African country had passed the mandatory 42-day monitoring period without any new cases.

WHO made the announcement at a joint news conference on Tuesday with Uganda’s Ministry of Health.

But the declaration came roughly a month after Uganda had declared that the local outbreak was over, based on its own analysis of the virus’s spread.

“We had assessed the risk, we had assessed the whole chain of transmission and the dynamics of importation of the virus in the country, and we knew that we were free from Ebola,” Diana Atwine, the permanent secretary for Uganda’s Health Ministry, told national broadcaster NTV.

“However, WHO had to wait because that’s the process. That’s the guideline.”

Atwine called on countries that had imposed travel restrictions on Uganda during the outbreak to lift them.

“Unless they have other reasons, they should definitely lift the restrictions off the country, and Ugandans should be free to travel to any country,” she said.

Uganda reported 20 Ebola infections in total, with its last confirmed case recorded on June 21. Two people died from the virus during the outbreak.

The last patient was discharged from Mulago National Referral Isolation Centre on July 16, and the Health Ministry formally declared the outbreak over on July 28.

The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), by contrast, is accelerating.

Confirmed cases in the DRC reached 5,656 as of August 25, an increase of 72 from a report released one day prior. A total of 2,715 deaths have been recorded, according to the latest government data cited by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Ituri province, in the northeast of the country, remains the epicentre of the outbreak, with more than 4,700 people infected.

Uganda shares a border with the northeast part of the DRC, stretching more than 877km (500 miles).

Kasonde Mwinga, the WHO’s representative for Uganda, said in Wednesday’s news conference that the country was supporting treatment and laboratory capacity at two sites across the border, in Aru and Kasenyi, both part of the Ituri province.

Mwinga added that the model for cross-border collaboration could be expanded regionally.

Already, Uganda has announced it would open two additional Ebola treatment centres in the DRC, bringing the total to four.

On Monday, Ugandan and Congolese officials also met in Kampala to review a bilateral memorandum of understanding on cross-border health security.

Kenneth Akiiri, the undersecretary for Uganda’s Health Ministry, called for the WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to mobilise further resources.

“When you are vulnerable and you have littler resources, you are supposed to raise an alarm for help,” Akiiri said in a joint statement.

For his part, DRC delegation head Adelard Lufungula urged strong action to combat the virus. “We want to fight Ebola like a war,” he said.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — OpenAI released a final report Wednesday on a July incident in which its artificial intelligence agents hacked into another company’s systems, saying it considers the episode “a warning shot” for the company and the world.

The incident is “evidence that, without proper safeguards, highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels and take dangerous actions that no human directed,” the report said.

The episode in question happened when some of the company’s AI bots hacked into the systems of Hugging Face, a company working with OpenAI. The bots did this of their own accord to get data they decided they needed to solve a problem during model testing, despite restrictions meant to keep them from the internet.

“With the benefit of hindsight, some early signals identified in this report could have triggered an earlier response,” the report said.

The company shared some new details in the report, including how the AI agents left messages for each other hidden in software infrastructure and coordinated to hack the other company, Wired reported.

Two independent research groups, METR and Redwood Research, also released an independent report on the incident Wednesday. These groups found that more than 700 AI agents were part of the breach.

Buck Shlegeris, CEO of Redwood Research, said in an interview with Wired that preventing the incident “wouldn’t have been that hard” if someone had decided to make sure of it.

“The issue is just that OpenAI is doing a lot of things at once, and it’s very hard for them to track all of the things that are going on and all the problems that could be occurring,” Shlegeris said. “The company has already said they’re changing their monitoring process in ways that probably would have caught this.”

The Washington Post noted in a story on the OpenAI report that the company acknowledged in the report that its AI agents repeatedly cheat to find shortcuts to accomplish tasks during training.

“Agents attempting to cheat on their tasks by looking up solutions online was a primary driver of the Hugging Face incident,” the OpenAI report said.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury issued sanctions Wednesday against British-based direct action group Palestine Action and two other organizations it called “violent far-left terrorist networks.”

The treasury declared Palestine Action a “specially designated global terrorist,” meaning that it can freeze the group’s assets, including bank accounts and property. The sanctions also prohibit people from giving funds, goods or services to the organization.

“Far-left extremists, their fronts and their enablers should be on notice: We will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear,” said Scott Bessent, secretary of the treasury. “Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated.”

In response, Huda Ammori, the co-founder of Palestine Action, said the group’s activities in the United States and other countries “have always been about saving lives by disrupting the Israeli war machine, which is committing a genocide in Gaza with the support of the U.S. government,” The Guardian reported.

“Trump has been at the center of the mass murder of Palestinians, enabling the Zionist regime at every turn,” Ammori said.

Palestine Action was also the first direct action group named under Britain’s Terrorism Act in July 2025. The group is fighting the ban in a legal challenge before the country’s supreme court in November.

“The fact that Trump is now taking inspiration from Britain’s repression of the movement for Palestinian freedom exposes just how dangerous this ban is and should be a wake-up call to anyone who cares about free speech and civil liberties,” Ammori said.

The U.S. Treasury said Palestine Action “has supported numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020, including acts that have physically injured U.K. law enforcement personnel, as well as acts intended to intimidate lawful commercial enterprises and coerce the U.K. government.

“The group’s action include multiple high-profile instances of breaking into defense infrastructure and British military installations and causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage to military equipment,” it said.

In March 2025, Trump’s golf course in Scotland was targeted by Palestine Action supporters who painted graffiti on the clubhouse and damaged the course, spraying “Gaza is not 4 sale.” Trump at the time called those responsible “terrorists.”

Other groups named global terrorist organizations by the United States include Hamas, al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

The groups sanctioned Wednesday also include Autistici Inventati, an Italy-based group “that supplies specialized digital architecture, tools and services for Antifa cells and other violent far-left extremists,” and Masar Badil, “which operates as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” the treasury said.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 50,000 people in July, an average of more than 1,500 people a day, according to newly released government data.

This sets a new monthly record for ICE in President Donald Trump‘s second term. ICE provided the information to the Deportation Data Project based at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

“The way people are being detained is far less flashy, but we are continuing to see arrests,” Melissa Shepard, director of legal services at immigrant services group ImmDef, told The Guardian. “It’s just on a quieter scale instead of, you know, 10, 12 officers making one arrest, you have a handful of officers pulling someone over.”

Markwayne Mullin took over as secretary of U.S. Homeland Security in March, succeeding Kristi Noem, and said he would fulfill Trump’s deportation goals without constant headlines.

“What we’re seeing is an expansion in all of the different ways that ICE is detaining people,” Graeme Blair, co-director of the Deportation Data Projection, told NPR. “They’re arresting people at airports, at ICE check-ins, at immigration courthouses, and this is the result of that.”

The 49,571 people detained in July mark the highest total since October 2022. A record number of those arrested had no criminal history, making up 51% of detainees, The Guardian said.

The number of those removed from the United States also hit a record high in July — nearly 34,000 people.

More than half the arrests were in Texas, Florida, Georgia and California. The prior three states take part in the 287(g) program, in which state and local police can do parts of ICE’s job in the field under ICE supervision. California and a number of other states, including New York, Maine and Vermont, ban 287(g) agreements.

Congress recently approved a $70 billion surge in funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, helping fuel these numbers. The figures also include the first arrests made after the Supreme Court allowed Trump to revoke Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants last month.