The briefing for Friday, August 14.

Rescuers in Colombia called for silence Thursday as they listened for signs of life beneath rubble left by Monday's 7.4-magnitude earthquake, the country's most powerful in over a century. The death toll has risen to at least 281, with 348 people rescued so far, according to authorities. Cities including Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdó suffered the heaviest damage.

Officials say the window for finding survivors is closing. David Santiago Tamayo, director of Colombia's National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, said Thursday night that "the probability of finding survivors is dwindling," though search efforts would continue. Aid agencies typically consider 48 to 72 hours after a quake the prime period for rescues, though that can extend if trapped survivors have access to food and water.

President Abelardo de la Espriella said nearly 500 people remain officially reported missing, though civilian-run databases put the figure above 4,200. More than 25,800 families have been affected in total. The disaster is testing the response capacity of Colombia's new government as volunteers like 25-year-old Daiana Rojas continue digging through debris in Cali, describing bursts of applause from rescue teams whenever survivors are found.

Russian jet-powered drones struck a home in northern Ukraine's Sumy region early Friday, killing a 29-year-old woman and her 9-year-old son and wounding four others, including the boy's father and grandmother. The attack came a day after the United Nations reported that July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since the early weeks of Russia's 2022 invasion, with at least 437 civilians killed and 2,610 wounded.

U.N. human rights monitors say the war has now killed at least 16,874 civilians and wounded more than 51,000 since it began. "Every month this year the number of killed and injured civilians has increased. That trend accelerated sharply in July," said Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. monitoring mission in Kyiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces are launching roughly 220 glide bombs daily against front-line settlements, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukraine, meanwhile, continued its months-long campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, striking the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat refinery roughly 800 miles inside Russia—one of the country's largest petrochemical facilities—and the Ust-Luga export terminal north of Moscow. A Russian refinery in Orsk hit earlier this week has suspended operations for up to six months due to sanctions-related repair delays, a rare public admission from a regional Russian governor.

The dueling escalations underscore a war that shows no sign of slowing after four years. Ukraine says its strikes aim to squeeze Russian oil revenue and pressure Putin toward negotiations, but there is no indication the strategy is working. Kyiv also faces a shortage of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors, partly due to competing demand from the Iran conflict, according to Zelenskyy.

Clashes between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Yemeni government forces intensified this week, raising fears that Yemen's civil war could reignite after a 2022 truce. At least one government soldier was killed in fighting in Taiz province, part of a broader wave of Houthi attacks that Yemeni officials say has killed dozens of troops since last week.

Survivors described chaos aboard a Yemeni commercial vessel struck by three Houthi ballistic missiles in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, killing six people and injuring at least nine. Crew members said a second missile hit as rescue efforts from the first strike were still underway. "People were burning... it was a strange scene of doomsday," said Zaheer Ahmed, a Pakistani crew member recovering in a Mokha hospital. It was the first deadly Houthi attack this year on a vessel in the strait, which carries roughly 12% of global trade.

The Houthis have also renewed drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's Aramco oil refinery in Jazan and declared a blockade on Saudi-linked shipping. U.N. special envoy Hans Grundberg told the Security Council that Yemen faces its greatest risk of large-scale conflict since the 2022 truce, while humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said 6 million Yemenis face emergency-level food insecurity. Nobel laureate Tawakkol Karman blamed the Houthis primarily for state collapse but also faulted Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the international community.

The instability comes as the U.S. repositions naval assets in the region, with the carrier USS George Washington heading toward the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. The developments highlight the risk of a widening regional conflict layered atop the ongoing U.S.-Iran tensions.

Israeli forces on Thursday ordered roughly a dozen Palestinian households in the West Bank village of Qusra to leave their homes during an operation to remove settlers who had besieged three Palestinian houses since Sunday, cutting off power and water. The village was declared a closed military zone, and residents said soldiers used vacated homes as barracks.

U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a longtime supporter of Israeli settlements, called the siege "a horrific act of terror" and referred to the settlers as "terrorists"—language U.S. officials typically reserve for Palestinian militants. It marked an unusually sharp rebuke from the Trump administration. An Israeli government spokesman, David Mencer, called the settlers' actions "deplorable" and said those responsible would be investigated and arrested.

Residents described soldiers breaking down doors and forcing families out; one man said he found his home ransacked and $1,500 in cash missing after being allowed to return. The IDF said it had dismantled two illegal outposts and detained one Israeli but did not directly address the allegations of theft. The episode is part of a broader rise in settler violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and which would form the core of a future Palestinian state.

The public criticism from Huckabee could complicate matters for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking to maintain close ties with Washington while courting ultranationalist voters ahead of an October reelection battle. Rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of failing to prevent settler violence against Palestinians.

The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday that California's prison system systematically failed to protect incarcerated women from sexual abuse and harassment by guards. The investigation, which began under the Biden administration, focused on the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino, finding guards regularly abused incarcerated women—including one convicted of a decade of abuse and sentenced to 224 years.

Investigators found the prison system lacked confidential reporting channels, and that staff assigned to investigate misconduct were sometimes accused of abuse themselves. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon named one sergeant tasked with investigating misconduct who was later sentenced to 15 years for receiving child sexual abuse images at work. "California's prison system, when it comes to women, has inadequate systems in place to deter, detect, and hold accountable rampant sexual misconduct," Dhillon said.

California's corrections department said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy and that independent audits found the two prisons compliant with federal standards as recently as 2024 and 2025. Advocacy group Sister Warriors countered that such audits use a "very low bar" that allows abuse to slip through. The federal government has given California 49 days to implement fixes, including expanded camera coverage and confidential reporting channels, or face possible civil litigation.

The findings echo a similar AP investigation into a federal facility in Dublin, California, nicknamed the "rape club," which was closed after reporting exposed rampant abuse there. The case underscores persistent gaps in oversight of women's prisons despite federal rape-prevention laws enacted in 2003.

Court documents filed Thursday revealed that federal agents ran an undercover surveillance operation, dubbed "Operation Puppet Master," targeting progressive organizations and labor unions during immigration-related protests in Minneapolis earlier this year. The documents emerged in a case against 15 people federally charged in June with impeding immigration enforcement actions.

According to the filings, Department of Homeland Security officers infiltrated meetings in churches, schools and parks, monitored activist chat groups, and used license plate data to compile attendee lists. A slide titled "The Conspiracy" named 18 organizations, ranging from a bicycle repair collective to the AFL-CIO, and investigators obtained years of financial records from groups including the Sunrise Movement, SEIU and the Communications Workers of America.

Defense attorney Kevin Riach called the operation a "broad and irrational investigation" driven by politics rather than criminal conduct. CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said the union had become "the latest target of a corrupt administration," while UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham warned the surveillance could create a chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech, calling it "that fear of that creeping police state."

DHS said it does not comment on ongoing investigations and referred questions to federal prosecutors in Minnesota, who did not immediately respond. The disclosures add to broader concerns about the scope of federal monitoring of activist and labor groups amid the administration's immigration crackdown.