The briefing for Thursday, August 13.

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia on Monday has killed at least 265 people, according to President Abelardo de la Espriella, with nearly 500 people officially reported missing and civilian-run databases putting that number above 4,100. More than 25,800 families have been affected. The hardest-hit cities are Cali, with 95 confirmed deaths, and Pereira, with 79.

In Pereira, rescuers pulled 32-year-old Daniela Largo from beneath a collapsed building after a 10-hour operation, more than 36 hours after the quake struck. Firefighters dug two tunnels through four concrete slabs to reach her, providing oxygen through one opening before freeing her through a second dug from below. At least 92 buildings collapsed in Pereira alone, with 15 people still trapped and 37 reported missing there.

Aid from regional partners has begun arriving as rescue teams in Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdo continue searching the rubble. Cali's mayor, Alejandro Eder, said Wednesday that crews were still finding signs of life beneath the debris. Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours after a disaster critical for finding survivors, though that window can extend if trapped people have access to food and water.

The disaster is testing Colombia's new government as it coordinates a national response alongside international aid and civil society groups. De la Espriella said the government's immediate focus is on locating the disappeared, even as rescue teams describe the coming hours as decisive for finding more survivors alive.

Ukraine launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on the Russian port of Novorossiysk, damaging two major grain export terminals and hitting what is now Russia's last major naval base on the Black Sea. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a "unique operation" involving rockets, jets and naval drones, and Ukraine's military said four Russian warships, including two frigates, were struck. Russia has not commented on the military details.

Local officials said three people, including an eight-year-old child, were killed and 24 injured in the overnight strikes. An emergency was declared in Novorossiysk after drones damaged pipelines and cut water supply to the city; a man was also killed by drone debris elsewhere in the surrounding Krasnodar region. Russia's agriculture ministry said it is redirecting cargo to Baltic and Caspian ports and land routes, citing "logistical constraints," without directly acknowledging the attack.

The strike is part of an escalating exchange this summer after a period of relative calm in the Black Sea. Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter, and a Moscow-based analytics firm estimates August exports could fall by more than half compared with recent years due to the disruption. Russia, meanwhile, struck Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia with ballistic missiles and glide bombs overnight, killing at least 11 civilians.

Zelensky told CNN that Ukraine needs about a tenth of the current U.S. stockpile of interceptor missiles to stop all Russian ballistic missile attacks, warning that Ukraine now has two and a half times fewer interceptors than in 2025 while Russia has doubled its monthly ballistic missile output. Ukrainian officials say Russia is also planning a mobilization of several hundred thousand additional troops by year's end, though Russian officials have dismissed such reports as destabilizing rumors.

A new Associated Press investigation, funded by the Pulitzer Center, documents how the dismantling of USAID has left pregnant women in rural Nepal without access to lifesaving care. One case detailed in the report: Kabita Mukhiya, a young mother in rural Nepal, suffered a pregnancy emergency for weeks without guidance after aid workers who once visited her village stopped coming. She lost her baby and nearly her own life.

The Gates Foundation has predicted 2025 will be the first year this century that global child mortality rises, a trend health officials attribute in part to the Trump administration's decision to dissolve USAID, once the world's largest humanitarian donor. The World Health Organization says the cuts, compounded by reductions from other countries, forced 60% of women's organizations worldwide to scale back services. A study in The Lancet estimated the U.S. cuts could contribute to more than 14 million deaths, including 4.5 million children under five, by 2030.

The U.S. State Department has said no deaths have resulted from its funding cuts and that it still supports maternal health programs in Nepal, adding that "the rest of the world needs to contribute more and share the burden." But aid workers in Nepal, including CARE Nepal's country director Mona Sherpa, say maternal deaths during childbirth have risen sharply, with a year's worth of expected deaths now occurring within four to six months.

The AP has documented similar deaths tied to aid cuts in countries including Myanmar and Nigeria, adding to a growing body of evidence that the rollback of U.S. foreign assistance is having measurable, lethal effects on maternal and child health in some of the world's poorest regions.

The World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo is on track to surpass the deadliest outbreak in history, the 2014-2016 West African epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people out of 28,000 cases. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the current outbreak, considered the fastest-growing ever recorded, has already killed more than 2,000 people out of over 4,300 cases since being declared on May 15, though genetic sequencing shows it likely began in February.

The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus strain, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments, unlike more common Ebola strains. It is spreading in a remote part of eastern Congo affected by ongoing conflict near the borders of South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda, where poor infrastructure, health worker strikes over unpaid wages, and public mistrust of outsiders are hampering containment efforts.

WHO emergency response director Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud said the agency expects the outbreak to peak within six months under a moderate scenario, but warned a worse scenario could see it last nine to 12 months. "The outbreak had a big head start, still way ahead of us, and we're playing catch-up," Tedros said, underscoring the urgency of scaling up vaccine and treatment development alongside on-the-ground response.

President Trump was sued in federal court Wednesday over a new subscription service at his Truth Social company that charges Wall Street firms up to $100,000 a month for early access to his posts on policy matters like war and tariffs. The lawsuit, filed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and news outlet The Intercept, argues the arrangement violates the First Amendment's guarantee of equal press access and the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable conditions for government benefits.

"A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago," said Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Trump Media countered that selling fast access to traders is standard industry practice and accused the plaintiffs of trying to "weaponize the courts to censor" the president.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York against Trump, deputy chief of staff Daniel Scavino and executive assistant Natalie Harp, seeks to end both the new "Truth API" service and Trump Media's broader exclusive early-access arrangement with the president's posts. It comes amid broader scrutiny of Trump's financial ties to ventures under his administration's regulatory purview, including more than $1 billion in crypto-related income reported on his latest financial disclosure and a $500 million investment in his World Liberty Financial venture from a company tied to the United Arab Emirates government.

Severe storms swept through the Midwest this week, spawning tornadoes and flash flooding that killed several people and knocked out power to more than 650,000 customers across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. A 4-year-old boy died in Geneva, Indiana, when a tree fell on his home, and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said a Roseville resident died during a health emergency after first responders could not reach flooded roads in time. Officials in Portage, Indiana, are investigating whether the storms contributed to a house explosion that killed one person.

The National Weather Service confirmed three tornadoes south of Chicago, with storm damage reported from the Chicago area to western Pennsylvania. Lightning struck a prison complex near Cleveland, injuring 16 incarcerated people, four of whom remained hospitalized as of Wednesday. Flood warnings extended from northern Illinois to eastern Indiana, with flash flood watches covering areas from Indiana through Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.

DeWine, who surveyed damage by helicopter, called the flooding "stunning" and said affected communities were hit "in a historic way." He deployed 40 Ohio National Guard members to assist two counties east of Columbus. Utility crews continued repairs Wednesday, with American Electric Power reporting more than 100 broken poles and 650 downed wire spans as officials in Columbus declared a state of emergency to aid cleanup efforts.