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俄罗斯无人机袭乌克兰客运列车 两人死亡

2026年8月13日 18:28 / 联合早报

8月13日，一列客运列车在乌克兰敖德萨地区遭俄罗斯无人机袭击后起火，消防员扑灭了机车的火灾。 （路透社）

俄罗斯无人机袭击乌克兰南部一列载有数百名乘客的列车，造成两人死亡。

法新社报道，乌克兰总统泽连斯基星期四（8月13日）说。“在敖德萨地区（Odesa），俄罗斯人再次用喷气式无人机摧毁一列普通客运列车的机车。当时车上有340人。”

泽连斯基指出：“操控无人机的人不可能不知道目标全部是平民。”

新华社报道，乌克兰铁路公司董事长佩尔佐夫斯基在社交媒体发文称，俄军无人机在敖德萨州对客运列车发动的袭击，造成列车驾驶员和副驾驶员死亡。列车上300余名乘客和乘务人员已疏散至安全地点。

乌克兰国家铁路运营商首席执行官说，车上乘客均未受伤。

乌克兰紧急救援部门发布的视频显示，列车驾驶室内燃起熊熊大火，车头部分炸毁并严重变形。

在长达四年半的战争中，莫斯科军队多次以列车为目标，基辅方面称这是一场旨在切断后勤补给并打击平民的行动。泽连斯基再次呼吁“加强防空支援，加大对俄罗斯的压力”。

意大利埃特纳火山持续喷发 卡塔尼亚机场航班起降暂停

2026年8月13日 18:40 / 联合早报

8月12日，在埃特纳火山喷发火山灰和熔岩期间，意大利西西里岛卡塔尼亚机场暂停航班起降。 （路透社）

由于意大利西西里岛的埃特纳火山（Etna）持续喷发，火山灰导致一个星期来数百架航班取消或改道，西西里岛卡塔尼亚机场（Catania airport）航班起降暂停安排将继续至星期五（8月14日）凌晨。

路透社报道，机场运营商SAC星期三（12日）晚间发表声明称，意大利客运量第五大的卡塔尼亚机场，所有进出港航班将暂停至当地时间8月14日凌晨2时。

声明建议乘客在前往机场前与航空公司确认航班状态。此次长时间的停飞正值夏季旅游旺季，影响数千名乘客，并给西西里岛其他机场带来额外压力。

埃特纳火山是欧洲最高、最活跃的火山，经常影响卡塔尼亚机场的运营。机场的运营商于今年5月启动至少51%股份的出售计划。

意大利火山学会主席维卡罗说，埃特纳火山自8月6日开始的活动比以往任何一次都更加剧烈，并且仍在持续。

他补充道：“这表明，更深层、富含气体的岩浆正在发挥更积极的作用，使得火山碎裂过程更加强烈，并导致火山灰量增加，严重影响卡塔尼亚机场的空中交通。”

When they didn’t find fraud while testing a voting machine for the Trump admin, this cyber firm faced a wave of backlash

2026-08-13T10:00:29.460Z / CNN

The Trump administration abruptly declined to renew a contract for a cybersecurity firm it hired to examine voting equipment in Puerto Rico after the company didn’t echo administration officials’ false claims of voter fraud, the firm’s executives said in their first extensive public remarks on the episode.

After hearing that the firm had found no evidence of vote tampering, allies of President Donald Trump derailed the cybersecurity firm’s work with the government in part by spreading false claims that the firm was funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, according to the firm’s executives and documents they provided to CNN.

A group of “White House-adjacent” Trump allies was “dissatisfied” that “I was not willing to name and shame at that moment and to say, ‘Turns out 2020 was a landslide for Trump. Nobody knew,’” Jason Wareham, CEO of the firm Mojave Research, said this month at the DEF CON cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas.

Mojave Research had no prior experience in testing election systems when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence contacted them in the spring of 2025 as part of the agency’s broader probe into voting equipment. ODNI hired the firm to analyze a specific voting machine made by Liberty Vote (formerly Dominion Voting Systems) that the agency acquired from Puerto Rico. Mojave did the work in six weeks in Wareham’s basement in Reston, Virginia, according to Wareham.

Mojave submitted a report on their findings to ODNI in July 2025, Wareham said, but it has yet to be made public. However, Mojave chief technology officer Manbir Gulati described the findings in detail at DEF CON’s “Voting Village” symposium.

“We found extensive and largely unacceptable weaknesses, but we did not find evidence that those weaknesses were actively exploited or that votes were altered,” Gulati said.

What Wareham’s team found — and didn’t find — in his basement would become a Rorschach test for Trump administration officials focused on election issues. It’s a cautionary tale of how a company that says it wanted to provide the administration with unbiased election security analysis was rejected by a group of officials who still dispute the results of the 2020 election and have Trump’s ear. The Trump administration’s revisiting of the 2020 election has extended to Arizona, where the FBI has obtained records of an audit that confirmed Joe Biden won the state.

After the company made clear what it had found, multiple figures aligned with Trump began to cast doubt on the integrity of Mojave, according to Wareham.

Wareham, a Republican, submitted a declaration in September under the penalty of perjury to the Trump administration to refute the notion that his company was “some form of deep plant meant to ensure the suppression of truth around compromised elections or election systems,” the declaration says.

Reuters has previously reported on Wareham’s declaration and Mojave Research’s tensions with Olsen, but CNN reviewed his full declaration submitted to ODNI. The document sheds light on how a faction of Trump allies has aggressively tried to prove the president’s false claims of voter fraud.

Wareham submitted his declaration and financial statements to ODNI to prove he was not affiliated with Soros, who has long been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories about secret levers of power. The next month, Wareham said he received an email, reviewed by CNN, which said that ODNI had issued a “stop-work order” on the contract.

The declaration alleges that attorney Kurt Olsen, who has repeatedly disputed the results of the 2020 and served as an adviser to Trump in his efforts to undermine faith in that election, repeatedly inserted himself into a probe of voting equipment begun last year by ODNI under a program known as the Director’s Initiatives Group.

Olsen had no experience in election law prior to the 2020 election, but he gained traction in Trump’s orbit — and eventually a direct line to the president — for trying to challenge elections in court. The Arizona Supreme Court ordered $2,000 in sanctions against Olsen and his co-counsel after they made false claims about the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election in their failed effort to overturn that result.

“During many of those interactions and meetings, Mr. Olsen would inform me he was speaking with the President on the election topic and at times seemed to intimate that he spoke on this issue for him,” Wareham’s declaration says. Olsen did not become a special government employee at the White House until October 2025, but Wareham told CNN that Olsen would routinely attend ODNI meetings on election security prior.

After Mojave’s contract ended with ODNI, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present in Fulton County, Georgia, in January as the FBI seized records related to the 2020 election. Gabbard’s presence, which she said Trump requested, alarmed election officials from both parties. Olsen drafted the criminal referral to the Justice Department that led to the FBI seizure.

Wareham’s declaration spotlights Olsen’s alleged actions in the months prior to the FBI seizure in Georgia. Discussions involving Olsen and others in his orbit were “hindered by rampant conjecture and assertions made without supporting evidence or documentation,” the document says.

“I lost count the number of times I heard ‘Maricopa County is a crime scene,’” Wareham said in his declaration. Maricopa County is Arizona’s largest county and has been at the center of Trump allies’ false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

“In total, despite requests and invitations to provide us materials that could be fully integrated into our reporting, we have received little to nothing that would support anything that Mr. Olsen has said or that would allow us to do a primary forensic analysis of sufficient quality that the [Director of National Intelligence] could rely on our conclusions,” the declaration says.

Olsen, now a Justice Department employee, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did the ODNI. The Justice Department had no comment other than to say that Olsen did not join the department until June. The White House referred questions to the ODNI.

Liberty Vote said it would not comment on Mojave’s findings because it had not seen the report Mojave submitted to ODNI, but added that it “is committed to advancing the future of secure American elections.”

ODNI officials accepted Mojave’s findings, according to Gulati and Wareham. The split within the administration over the Mojave report and the delay over releasing it has undercut efforts to fix the software flaws in the voting equipment, the Mojave executives said.

“What we encountered [were] a lot of competing factions within the government — people who want the boogey man to be out there and are willing to do anything to find it and then people who actually do genuinely care about the issue [of election security],” Gulati added. “There was a huge faction that was like, ‘Mojave doesn’t know what they’re doing. They’re dummies and that’s why they can’t find evidence of compromise.”

Cybersecurity research of election systems has become a fraught exercise after the 2020 election because of the tendency of conspiracy theorists to equate software bugs with voter fraud.

Gulati said he wrestled with the decision to work with the administration, given the risk his research could be weaponized.

“Because their motivations were off, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the idea of looking into election security is wrong or something that shouldn’t be prioritized,” Gulati said, adding that he would rather contribute his security expertise than stay silent. “There have been plenty of pushes for election security efforts both on the left and the right, as there should be.”

意大利埃特纳火山持续喷发 卡塔尼亚机场航班起降暂停

2026年8月13日 18:40 / 联合早报

8月12日，在埃特纳火山喷发火山灰和熔岩期间，意大利西西里岛卡塔尼亚机场暂停航班起降。 （路透社）

由于意大利西西里岛的埃特纳火山（Etna）持续喷发，火山灰导致一个星期来数百架航班取消或改道，西西里岛卡塔尼亚机场（Catania airport）航班起降暂停安排将继续至星期五（8月14日）凌晨。

路透社报道，机场运营商SAC星期三（12日）晚间发表声明称，意大利客运量第五大的卡塔尼亚机场，所有进出港航班将暂停至当地时间8月14日凌晨2时。

声明建议乘客在前往机场前与航空公司确认航班状态。此次长时间的停飞正值夏季旅游旺季，影响数千名乘客，并给西西里岛其他机场带来额外压力。

埃特纳火山是欧洲最高、最活跃的火山，经常影响卡塔尼亚机场的运营。机场的运营商于今年5月启动至少51%股份的出售计划。

意大利火山学会主席维卡罗说，埃特纳火山自8月6日开始的活动比以往任何一次都更加剧烈，并且仍在持续。

他补充道：“这表明，更深层、富含气体的岩浆正在发挥更积极的作用，使得火山碎裂过程更加强烈，并导致火山灰量增加，严重影响卡塔尼亚机场的空中交通。”

In record US wildfire season, firefighter entrapments hit 20-year high

2026-08-13T10:02:36.967Z / Reuters

Aug 13 (Reuters) – U.S. firefighting personnel are being overrun by wildfires at the highest rate in two decades, leading to six deaths and dozens of injuries this year, federal data showed, a grim count during a record-setting ​fire season in the United States.

There have been 12 entrapments so far in 2026, according to the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, a federal agency, already more than the full-year average ‌of nine in the last 20 years, and the highest year-to-date number since 2006.

Wildfire entrapments are life-threatening situations in which fire behavior compromises the escape routes or safety zones of firefighting personnel.

The sheer number and scale of wildfires this year, which experts attribute in part to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, mean increased risk for firefighting personnel.

Seven active and retired firefighters told Reuters they were also concerned firefighters were taking unusual risks because of an all-out approach to stopping fires mandated by the Trump administration. They ​also questioned the impact of U.S. Forest Service staffing cuts as part of broader federal downsizing.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service, part of the Department of Agriculture that has historically taken the lead on ​fighting wildfires, said firefighter safety was the agency’s highest priority and investigations were ongoing into the incidents of firefighters being trapped by flames.

The USFS did not immediately respond ⁠to requests for comment on the impact of all-out fire suppression tactics and staffing cuts.

The newly created U.S. Wildland Fire Service, which aims to consolidate federal firefighting forces under the Interior Department, said it was reviewing the ​entrapments to improve firefighter safety.

INTENSE FIRE SEASON

After a historically low winter snowpack, record temperatures and decades of drought in the U.S. West, the country is facing an intense fire season.

The National Interagency Fire Center said 6.4 million acres (about 2.6 million ​hectares) have burned to date — the highest August 12 level on record and about five times the area burned in

Europe
this year. U.S. firefighters have had to respond to over 46,500 wildfires, the highest number in over a decade.

That means they face danger for longer periods of time in drier, more extreme fire conditions, which heightens risks, said U.S. Forest Service fire specialist Wesley Page, who has researched entrapments.

Entrapment deaths normally account for around four of the average 17 fatalities each year of wildland firefighting personnel in ​the United States, according to National Interagency Fire Center and USFS data. So far in 2026, six of the 13 people who died fighting fires were entrapped, based on Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center data.

Around a quarter ​of 2026 entrapments involved helicopter-borne firefighters, or so-called helitack crews, often dropped near blazes to create fire breaks. Four helitack firefighters died and one was severely burned after a June 27 entrapment in Colorado’s Knowles Fire, the most deadly entrapment in 13 ‌years.

“The fact that ⁠three incidents may involve Helitack crews does not necessarily mean Helitack operations have become more dangerous,” the U.S. Wildland Fire Service said in a statement.

Other entrapments involved Washington fire crews who abandoned vehicles after they caught fire, and bulldozer drivers overrun by flames in Washington and Oregon as they scraped fire breaks.

Current and former firefighters said they were concerned fire personnel were taking more risks than usual after officials in President Donald Trump’s administration stressed putting out all blazes immediately, an approach known as full suppression.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, responsible for the Forest Service, said in an April letter to staff that her top priority was to “accelerate initial attack and use a full suppression strategy.”

Riva Duncan, president ​of firefighter advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, said that ​was not always appropriate, given conditions on the ⁠ground were “insanely” volatile with extreme dryness and strong winds.

“We can’t put people in front of some of these fires, we just can’t,” said Duncan, who worked as a fire duty officer on blazes in the U.S. Southwest this year.

U.S. Wildland Fire Service Director Brian Fennessy told the Hotshot Wake Up podcast earlier this month that he was confused by 2025 ​policies encouraging firefighters to be more aggressive on initial attack, the first response to a wildfire, adding their procedures were already aggressive.

“Aggressive does not mean taking extra or ​extraordinary risk of harming your ⁠people,” he said.

DEATHS IN COLORADO

U.S. Forest Service fire specialist Page, who works in Colorado, said the agency’s emphasis on full suppression may have made firefighters on the the Knowles Fire act more aggressively than they would normally.

Page, assigned to firefighting duties in the same area around two days after the entrapment, said a blaze like the Knowles Fire would die by itself once the wind dropped due to the area’s rough terrain and relatively sparse vegetation.

Scott Fitzwilliams, former supervisor of Colorado’s ⁠White River National ​Forest, said full suppression marked a return to failed 20th-century policies that led to the build-up of forest fuel now driving the ​country’s wildfire crisis.

He said over 6,000 USFS job cuts in 2025 during federal downsizing had wiped out the support structure for the agency’s 11,300 firefighters and caused higher fatigue.

“The pressure to put out all fires when they are small puts firefighters at risk,” said Fitzwilliams, who retired ​last year and knew Emily Barker, one of the Rifle Helitack crew members who died in the Knowles Fire and worked in his forest area.

Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; editing by Donna Bryson and Nia Williams

Biden clemency blitz left DOJ scrambling as many commutations bypassed normal vetting, emails show

2026-08-13T06:00:05-04:00 / Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: Justice Department (DOJ) officials scrambled after former President Joe Biden’s end-of-term clemency grants were announced, trying to determine what some decisions actually covered and correcting errors in others — part of a broader clemency process that drew criticism from former U.S. pardon attorneys, a federal judge and other officials, internal emails show.

The records were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) and shared with Fox News Digital.

In one exchange, involving a career offender convicted in a series of crack-cocaine trafficking cases, prosecutors were left asking whether Biden had commuted a separate 235-month sentence for the man that was not explicitly listed. The question prompted a deputy pardon attorney to offer the “most sensible reading,” while acknowledging that “many” of Biden’s Jan. 17 commutations had bypassed the agency’s normal pardon-office vetting and did not undergo the typical level of review.

In another episode, the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) was caught off guard by Hunter Biden’s pardon and later had to correct a notice that incorrectly described him as receiving it “after completion of sentence” — even though he had not yet been sentenced, never would be, and the pardon was full and unconditional. Officials also spent days working through how to authenticate and transmit the pardon to the court.

HAWLEY ERUPTS AT BIDEN PARDON ATTORNEY OVER DYLANN ROOF CLEMENCY PUSH

U.S. President Joe Biden is flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as he signs into law the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022” in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House in Washington, March 15, 2022.(REUTERS/Leah Millis)

Separately, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland asked for an explanation after reviewing more than a dozen North Dakota commutations and saying that neither sentencing judges, prosecutors nor victims had been consulted — “not even” by telephone. He also questioned the validity of several pardons, noting they were out-of-step with his view of the second-chance rationale associated with clemency grants.

“The process didn’t match the public sales pitch,” former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News Digital. “There is a Grand Canyon gap between the public description and the internal reality.”

“This paints a troubling picture of a pardon process driven by politics and haste rather than the careful deliberation such extraordinary acts of executive clemency demand,” added PPT’s communications director Alexa Moutevelis. “The Justice Department pardon office’s own emails show the final Biden auto-pen blitz was so clumsy and rushed that the chaos extended even to the most high-profile and controversial of all: his own son, Hunter.”

The Biden administration had publicly sought to assure Americans that the president took clemency “very, very seriously,” with then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying cases were presented to the president by his team for a final decision.

DOJ told Fox News Digital that clemency officials did not conduct an individualized review of the slate of roughly 1,500 people whose sentences Biden commuted Dec. 12. Instead, they were granted clemency as a group after being identified by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and DOJ as people serving sentences on home confinement during COVID under the CARES Act. BOP had previously assessed the recipients before placing them on home confinement, but clemency officials did not separately review most recipients’ individual offenses or case histories before the Dec. 12 grants.

REPEAT OFFENDER LABELED ‘DANGER TO THE COMMUNITY’ WALKS FREE AFTER BIDEN AUTOPEN CLEMENCY

Meanwhile, concerns inside DOJ surfaced almost immediately after Biden’s Jan. 17 grants were announced. The Wall Street Journal reported roughly two weeks after they went out that then-U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer told U.S. attorneys in a Jan. 18 internal email that Biden’s clemency action “was not carried out in consultation with the Office of the Pardon Attorney and there was little coordination with the Department.”

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that a CIA officer who provided Top Secret intelligence to China was sentenced to prison.(Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Eleven days after Biden’s Jan. 17 mass commutations, on Jan. 28, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Maya Song of the Eastern District of Virginia contacted OPA after a court raised a question about a commutation Biden seemingly awarded to Christopher Damon Spencer. The clemency list identified him alongside the docket number for a 2003 case, but Spencer also had a separate 2011 case in which he had been sentenced to 235 months in prison. Song asked whether Biden’s commutation applied to that sentence as well.

Deputy Pardon Attorney Kira Gillespie responded hours later that applying the commutation to both docket numbers was the “most sensible reading” and apologized for the confusion.

“Many of the cases that were granted commutation on January 17 were not vetted through our office,” Gillespie wrote, “and so the data we had available was not reviewed as carefully as we would ordinarily hope it to be.”

The emails show a separate episode of confusion following Hunter Biden’s pardon. OPA formally told prosecutors that the Dec. 1 pardon “was not processed via application through our Office,” and Oyer later confirmed internally that the office had been caught off guard.

‘PRIVILEGED’ HUNTER BIDEN, SPARED BY DAD’S PARDON, BLASTS TRUMP’S CLEMENCY POWER

Hunter Biden flashes a big smile as he leaves an Arby’s in Santa Barbara on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. This is the first time that the son of President Joe Biden has been photographed since he was pardoned by his father.(The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)

The OPA’s surprise was reported publicly at the time, but the newly obtained emails provide internal confirmation from Oyer herself. When a DOJ public-affairs official told her that Politico planned to report the office had been “taken by surprise” and asked whether that characterization was wrong, Oyer replied: “I’m curious about the sourcing on #1, but it’s accurate.”

OPA then had to correct its own notification. On Dec. 2, Senior Deputy Pardon Attorney Rosalind Sargent-Burns told prosecutors that an earlier notice had incorrectly described Hunter Biden as receiving a full and unconditional pardon “after completion of sentence,” saying the phrase “was included in error” and apologizing for the confusion.

Days later, prosecutors turned to OPA after the federal court handling Hunter Biden’s California case said his defense-submitted pardon lacked authentication and had not been received from the appropriate executive agency. Internal emails show OPA officials then tracking down the court clerk and preparing a verification.

By the morning of Dec. 6, Oyer wrote that the matter appeared finished: “I think this is now resolved.”

EYEBROW-RAISING CLAIM FROM ‘HUNTER BIDEN’ X ACCOUNT DRAWS GOP MOCKERY

Former Department of Justice Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer is sworn in during the second day of acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be attorney general, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 16, 2026.(Ken Cedeno / AFP via Getty Images)

A DOJ official attributed the post-grant errors, which they characterized as minor and easily corrected, to the Biden White House failing to provide the department complete and timely information about the commutations, saying DOJ personnel were forced to identify affected individuals and provide notice on extremely short timelines.

Oyer, who led the OPA under Biden, which describes itself as the DOJ office responsible for receiving, reviewing and investigating clemency applications and providing recommendations to the president, noted in an email to a DOJ public affairs official that presidents have relied on the office for more than 130 years for “neutral advice and expertise.” In a statement to Fox News Digital, a representative for Oyer reiterated her public comments about not being consulted over “certain clemency grants at the end of the Biden administration, including the pardon of Hunter Biden, which she believes was a misuse of the pardon power.”

Only 258 of the roughly 2,490 Jan. 17 clemency recipients had been recommended by DOJ, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the White House included some individuals the department had specifically rejected, while leaving out hundreds whom the DOJ had recommended.

Criminal justice expert warns Biden’s clemency program lacks proper vetting after the Nebraska shooting suspect and Alabama drug arrest involve early releases.(Dothan Police Department, AP/Evan Vucci, Omaha Police Department and Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

The internal DOJ records reviewed by Fox News Digital do not establish the full process used outside OPA — including how individual recipients were selected, what case information was reviewed, who conducted any case-by-case vetting and how final changes to the lists were made.

DOJ indicated that presidents of both parties have exercised their constitutional clemency authority without consulting the department, and its regulations do not require presidents to use the traditional pardon-office process.

FORMER INDIANA REP STEPHEN BUYER RECEIVES FULL PARDON FROM TRUMP FOR 2023 INSIDER TRADING CONVICTION

Former Pardon Attorney Margaret Love said the Jan. 17 emails nevertheless reflected a significant departure from that traditional system.

“The OPA email indicates that the names of the final clemency recipients did not come through the regular pardon process where they would have been vetted by Justice Department professionals,” Love told Fox News Digital. “That would be unprecedented in my experience — at least for any president other than President Trump, who also does not use the regular process.”

“While the clemency process is always somewhat opaque as far as the public is concerned, this process seems to have been secret even from the responsible staff at the Justice Department,” Love added. “Where did the cases come from, and how were they selected? I don’t know that and evidently neither did the staff in the pardon office.”

COLORADO DEMOCRATS FORMALLY CENSURE GOV POLIS OVER TINA PETERS COMMUTATION

District court judge Hovland’s objections to the Dec. 12 commutations were aired publicly at the time, according to the internal records reviewed by Fox News Digital. He copied numerous North Dakota news organizations in his Dec. 18 email, but the FOIA records reveal how his complaint was received inside OPA.

When a senior deputy forwarded the email to Oyer the following morning and asked whether further action should be taken, Oyer responded: “SIGH. Thanks for letting me know.” DOJ told Fox News Digital it could find no record of the department responding to Hovland’s request for an explanation.

The Department of Justice headquarters.(Drew Angerer)

Hovland highlighted two recipients who had defrauded more than 60 farmers and agricultural businesses of $11.4 million and a bank of $28.5 million, saying neither had presented evidence supporting a commutation and warning that the grants eroded confidence in the justice system and respect for the rule of law. Hovland said his concerns extended beyond the two fraud cases to other drug-trafficking commutations he reviewed, none of which he described as involving “low-level, non-violent drug offenders.”

“None of the federal prosecutors, victims, or myself as the sentencing judge were ever contacted about these commutations beforehand — not even a telephone call,” Hovland wrote, asking OPA to explain how the cases had been investigated, why the sentences were commuted and why nobody with direct knowledge of the cases had been consulted.

The records reviewed by Fox show that advance DOJ notification varied across Biden’s late-term clemency actions. Ahead of Biden’s Dec. 23 federal death-row commutations, officials made advance calls to the affected U.S. attorneys. On the morning of Dec. 22, Deputy Attorney General’s Office official Bradley Weinsheimer told Oyer he was “awaiting clearance to start making capital case USA notifications.” Minutes later, he wrote: “Starting notifications now.”

Shortly thereafter, within hours, Weinsheimer reported that: “All USAs now have been notified. Pushback by a couple, but all were appreciative of the call.”

Alec Schemmel is a Politics Reporter for Fox News Digital who is originally from Charlotte, North Carolina but now resides in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore Metro Area.

承受伊朗战争冲击 英国第二季度经济增长0.4%

2026年8月13日 18:45 / 联合早报

晴朗的天气和世界杯带动英国第二季度经济增长。图为8月10日，英国首都伦敦位于泰晤士河畔的金融城。 （彭博社）

英国经济挺过了伊朗战争爆发后的最初几个月，第二季度晴朗的天气和世界杯带动消费者支出。

彭博社报道，据英国国家统计星期四（8月13日）公布的数据，截至6月的三个月，国内生产总值（GDP）增长0.4%，增速略低于第一季度的0.6%。这一数据符合经济师的预估中值，服务业是增长的主要推动力。

6月GDP增长0.3%，经济师此前预期为下滑0.1%。5月经济为零增长。

尽管中东冲突造成的能源冲击几乎未在第二季度对经济造成重大影响，但经济师和英国央行预计，随着战争的全面影响逐渐显现，增长势头将会减弱。

在经历了强劲的上半年后，下半年经济表现预计将趋于平淡，因为7月份能源价格上限上调13%给家庭带来压力，而伯纳姆成为英国短短十余年间的第七位首相后，政策不确定性卷土重来。

承受伊朗战争冲击 英国第二季度经济增长0.4%

2026年8月13日 18:45 / 联合早报

晴朗的天气和世界杯带动英国第二季度经济增长。图为8月10日，英国首都伦敦位于泰晤士河畔的金融城。 （彭博社）

英国经济挺过了伊朗战争爆发后的最初几个月，第二季度晴朗的天气和世界杯带动消费者支出。

彭博社报道，据英国国家统计星期四（8月13日）公布的数据，截至6月的三个月，国内生产总值（GDP）增长0.4%，增速略低于第一季度的0.6%。这一数据符合经济师的预估中值，服务业是增长的主要推动力。

6月GDP增长0.3%，经济师此前预期为下滑0.1%。5月经济为零增长。

尽管中东冲突造成的能源冲击几乎未在第二季度对经济造成重大影响，但经济师和英国央行预计，随着战争的全面影响逐渐显现，增长势头将会减弱。

在经历了强劲的上半年后，下半年经济表现预计将趋于平淡，因为7月份能源价格上限上调13%给家庭带来压力，而伯纳姆成为英国短短十余年间的第七位首相后，政策不确定性卷土重来。

Lawmakers demand answers about USS Abraham Lincoln conditions as reports emerge of sailors attempting to jump overboard

2026-08-13T09:33:21.107Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/13/politics/uss-abraham-lincoln-conditions-extended-deployment-hnk

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains discussion of suicide. Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters. In the US, call or text 988 for help. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide have contact information for crisis centers around the world.

Several Democratic lawmakers are calling for answers after concerns were raised by families of sailors aboard USS Abraham Lincoln about the deteriorating living conditions and worsening mental health during the ship’s record-breaking deployment amid the war with Iran.

Since the Lincoln left its home port of San Diego last November, the aircraft carrier has been deployed for more than 250 days after being redirected to the Middle East to support US operations in the war with Iran, now entering its sixth month. With more than 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard, it has not made a port call in more than 200 days, setting a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea, according to Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

News outlets Stars and Stripes and the Navy Times reported this week that there had been multiple attempts by crew members to jump overboard, citing interviews with sailors and families of those on board who described the impacts of the lengthy deployment.

On Wednesday, Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut and a member of the Armed Services Committee, wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Acting Secretary of the Navy to express “serious concern” about the increasing length of deployments and demand answers about living conditions aboard the carrier.

“There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns,” aboard the ship, he said in the letter, as well as “disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months.”

https://www.cnn.com/

According to both media outlets, around 200 family members of Lincoln crew members voiced concerns over mental health and safety conditions to Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and other senior officials during town hall meetings last Thursday in San Diego.

During the town hall, a spouse tearfully told officials that she received a message that same day from her husband saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow,” Stars and Stripes reported, citing one of the attendees.

Among the other concerns raised were reports of a lack of supplies, food shortages, water contamination and mail system disruptions, according to MS NOW, which reviewed audio and video recordings of the meeting.

In one meeting, Vice Adm. Joseph Cahill, commander of Naval Surface Forces, acknowledged the strain on sailors and their families, according to MS NOW, telling families: “We hear you loud and clear (regarding) the impact this has on families, on service members and the long-term ability of us to stand, sustain our forces’ health.”

In a statement to CNN, the US Navy said, “We have not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship. We take every service member’s well-being seriously and have religious, medical and mental health professionals available to assess and address concerns as they arise.”

CNN has reached out to the Department of Defense regarding the reports and Blumenthal’s letter.

Democratic Rep. Mike Levin of California referenced the meeting in a post on X Friday, saying families described “moldy showers, broken toilets, no hot water for weeks, meals that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas.”

“Sailors so worn down that, according to one family member, the ship’s own doctor warned they need to reach port soon or people are going to start losing their minds,” he wrote.

In its report released Tuesday, Stars and Stripes said its interviews with active-duty sailors and family members, as well as “dozens of public social media comments and posts” by crew, described sailors “struggling with exhaustion and declining morale, including reports of suicidal thoughts and at least one instance where a crew member was prevented from jumping overboard.”

The Navy Times also quoted the wife of one serviceman aboard the Lincoln who said her husband had tried to jump overboard during the current deployment.

“He’s scared,” Annabelle Loma told the Navy Times. “He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year career is ruined, just like that. That’s not fair, that’s not right. That’s not what he should be worrying about right now.”

The Navy Times also spoke to the wife of another sailor who told her he had prevented a fellow sailor from jumping overboard in a separate incident.

In an interview with CNN, the journalist who wrote the Navy Times’ report, Natalie Oliverio, said Loma had not heard from Navy representatives in weeks and is “extremely worried and concerned about how her husband is actually doing.”

https://www.cnn.com/

Oliverio said Loma faces the stresses of having a spouse deployed while raising their three little children, “so not being able to have answers or direction is really challenging right now for her especially.”

Massachusetts’ Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee, described the reports as “horrific” in an interview with CNN’s Laura Coates and said his committee would be conducting an investigation.

“Sadly I’m not surprised. We have a president, a Commander-in-Chief, who’s made fun of troops for mental health issues. We have a secretary of defense who’s more focused on testosterone tests than actually keeping our troops alive,” he told CNN.

“It’s really hard to be excited about that mission (the war with Iran). There’s no one who believes in it right now, and that’s got to be one of the toughest tolls on our troops,” he said.

https://www.cnn.com/

A July CNN poll found a record-high 73% of US adults say that President Donald Trump hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems, and 67% think Trump’s decisions about military action in Iran have hurt the US.

Armen Kurdian, a retired US Navy Captain who served aboard the Lincoln, told CNN affiliate KFMB, “It’s not uncommon that a strike group experiences somebody wanting to jump overboard or somebody wanting to commit suicide during a deployment.”

“It doesn’t happen every day obviously, but it does happen. So the fact that it’s happening during this deployment is not surprising,” Kurdian said.

In his letter to the Pentagon, Blumenthal said he had “serious concerns about the increasing length of Carrier Strike Group deployments.”

“If the Administration intends to maintain a prolonged military campaign or an elevated carrier presence in the region, it must explain how it intends to ensure today’s operational requirements do not create tomorrow’s readiness crisis,” he wrote, referencing the possibility of additional US naval forces being deployed to the region.

Earlier this year, the USS Gerald R. Ford broke the record for the longest deployment for an aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War – an extended deployment that challenged morale amid an intense few months of combat.

In March, a fire broke out in the ship’s laundry department, taking the crew 30 hours to put out. No sailors were injured, but roughly 600 lost access to their bunks due to the damage.

https://www.cnn.com/

As CNN reported at the time, the Navy as a whole faces issues with sailor burnout, according to multiple sources familiar with internal Navy discussions about the issue. Navy aviation personnel, from pilots to maintainers, are leaving the service at a high rate, according to those sources.

Officials at Thursday’s meetings with Lincoln crew family members would not say when the carrier would return home, citing operational security, spouses told the Stars and Stripes.

“The men and women aboard the Lincoln have answered the call to serve their country,” Blumenthal wrote in his letter to the Pentagon.

“The Department owes them not only adequate supplies, maintenance, and support during this deployment.”

CNN’s Alex Stambaugh and Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.

Taylor Farms outbreaks show limits of US ability to safeguard produce from Mexico

2026-08-13 10:04:34 / Reuters

A drone view shows Taylor Farms Mexico’s facilities in Doctor Mora, Guanajuato state, Mexico, July 20, 2026. REUTERS/Demian Sanchez/File Photo

MEXICO CITY, Aug 13 – Two foodborne illness outbreaks linked to Taylor Farms have exposed a weakness at the heart of North America’s food system: the United States is increasingly relying on Mexico’s produce industry, and ​regulators are straining to oversee it to keep consumers safe.

Taylor Farms, the $7 billion company that supplies fast-food chains, major food distributors and grocers, recalled prepared products containing jalapenos ‌this week after U.S. authorities linked a salmonella outbreak that has sickened several hundred to peppers imported from Mexico. It followed a major cyclosporiasis outbreak, traced to iceberg lettuce Taylor Farms imported from Mexico, that has made more than 6,300 people sick and caused two deaths.

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The back-to-back incidents have revived concerns over the FDA’s ability to oversee imported food, experts say. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s employment fell by 22% in 2026 compared ​to 2024, according to agency data, in part due to workforce cuts since Donald Trump returned to the White House. Foreign food-facility inspections by the FDA fell by ​nearly 13% in fiscal 2025, while imports have continued to rise.

“Without question, the cuts are harmful to food safety,” said Jennifer McEntire, founder of ⁠the U.S.-based Food Safety Strategy consultancy, as is “having decreased oversight to what’s actually happening as outbreaks occur.”

The FDA did not respond to a request for comment.

RELIANCE ON MEXICO

The U.S. imported less ​than $3 billion in agricultural products from Mexico in 1993, the year before the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. That level has increased by ​nearly 1,500% through 2025.

Mexico now accounts for more than 20% of all U.S. food imports, according to Luis Ribera, an agricultural economy expert at Texas A&M University. The U.S. imported $16.1 billion in fresh produce in 2025, according to a university analysis.

“We don’t have to wait for products to be in season for us to consume it year-round,” said Ribera. “Having those partners is very important for the affordability of food here in the U.S.”

Yet ​the same supply chains that keep U.S. grocery shelves stocked have also periodically exposed consumers to foodborne illness.

U.S. food safety investigations over the last two decades have traced outbreaks to imported ​Mexican fruit and vegetables, including peppers, cantaloupes, cilantro and leafy greens.

The outbreaks have prompted scrutiny of irrigation water, sanitation practices and food-safety controls across the fragmented networks of growers, packers and distributors. The FDA has ‌imposed safeguards ⁠in some regions, though those exporters, growers and processors in Mexico are already subject to U.S. food-safety requirements.

However, there is no uniform certification policy requiring all Mexican produce suppliers to demonstrate their irrigation water is safe before exporting to the U.S., experts said.

Cristobal Chaidez, a food-safety researcher at Mexico’s National Laboratory for Research in Food Safety, said agricultural water is a persistent vulnerability in fresh produce production in Mexico.

“During a drought, if a small farmer finds a water source, they might use it even if it’s poor quality,” he said, adding that food companies ultimately bear responsibility ​for policing their supply chains.

IMPORT ALERTS

Taylor Farms temporarily ​shut down the Guanajuato processing facility that ⁠U.S. officials traced to the cyclosporiasis outbreak.

In a statement, the company said that its water sources are tested for fecal indicator organisms.

“We have cooperated fully with regulators in any instance where food safety concerns were raised, taking corrective action where warranted,” the company said.

The ongoing outbreak of cyclosporiasis was ​not the first linked to Taylor Farms in Mexico. In 2013, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

linked restaurant-associated illnesses in ​Iowa and Nebraska to a ⁠bagged salad mix from Taylor Farms in Guanajuato.

Historically, the FDA has responded to illness outbreaks by placing particular products and regions under import alerts.

Firms that demonstrate compliance with additional safety, tracing, audit and testing requirements may qualify for the agency’s so-called green list and avoid being held at the border without needing inspection first. Yet, the green list system does not apply broadly across Mexican agriculture, and ⁠the twin outbreaks ​involving Taylor Farms and Mexican produce have prompted questions about whether existing oversight tools are sufficient.

McEntire said import alerts ​and green lists are generally deployed after recurring problems emerge, and serve as one enforcement tool rather than a standard requirement.

“I don’t think that it is the be-all and end-all to produce safety. It doesn’t guarantee that there’s still ​thorough understanding and execution of these practices,” she said.

Reporting by Cassandra Garrison in Mexico City; additional reporting by Sarah Morland and Leah Douglas in Washington; editing by Emily Schmall and David Gaffen