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Trigger warning: this morning’s edition includes the topic or sexual assault in our second story.
SOUTH LEBANON BURNS
Fires have swept across southern Lebanon almost daily since June’s ceasefire. Firefighters and environmental groups say Israeli forces are setting them deliberately.
Hussein Fakih leads civil defense in Nabatieh. “Most of our missions are now related to fires,” he said. Fires have burned 30 to 40 percent of the land near the frontline, he said.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces dropped flares into woods near Khiam. The flares started fires. When firefighters arrived, a drone struck nearby. They retreated. Fakih said the pattern began right after the ceasefire. Incendiary munitions have fallen daily since.
Similar fires hit Kfarchouba last Friday. A drone dropped a munition into dry woodland. Crews battled the blaze overnight and put it out Saturday morning. A second drone started another fire soon after, said Samir Hardan, the local civil defense chief. Fires also spread near Jezzine, along the edge of the Bekaa Valley, that same day.
Olive groves and centuries-old trees have burned alongside the woodland. Green Southerners, a Lebanese conservation group, calls the pattern a long-term Israeli strategy. Its founder said Israel is degrading the land’s ability to sustain life at all.
Lebanon’s civil defense has recorded 2,097 wildfires so far this year. Most fires nationwide come from human activity, intentional or accidental, officials say. But officials in the south say the frontline fires are different. They follow strikes, not carelessness.
Israel’s defense minister said this week Israeli forces will not withdraw from southern Lebanon. Airstrikes there continued through the week.
The Israeli military said all its strikes on Lebanon are carried out while taking precautions to limit harm to civilians and the environment. It has previously said Hezbollah uses wooded areas to hide fighters and tunnels. It did not respond to requests for comment on the individual fire incidents described above.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: This story exists almost entirely outside American coverage. It comes from Lebanese civil defense officials and environmental groups speaking directly to international reporters, not from any government spokesperson. One academic has called the pattern ecocide. That framing, land destruction as a deliberate military strategy rather than collateral damage, has not made it into American reporting on the ceasefire at all.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: A ceasefire has held for two months, and Israeli forces are still burning Lebanese farmland and forest almost daily, according to firefighters on the ground. Israel says its strikes take precautions to limit environmental harm, and points to Hezbollah’s use of wooded areas as justification. It did not answer questions about these specific incidents. This is happening with almost no American coverage, even as Washington continues treating the ceasefire as a diplomatic success story.
Sources: The Guardian (UK — Fakih account, ceasefire-era pattern); Irish Examiner (Ireland — Kfarchouba and Jezzine incidents, Hardan account); Common Dreams (US, advocacy-oriented — Green Southerners characterization); L’Orient Today (Lebanon — national wildfire statistics); Jerusalem Post (Israel, centre-right — IDF statement on strike precautions)
THE FOSTER LAWSUIT
2nd Lt. Cailin Foster died by suicide in November 2021. She had graduated from the Air Force Academy six months earlier. Her parents filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the Academy on July 13.
Court documents say a male cadet followed Foster into her dorm room after a party during her first year, in 2017. He locked the door and raped her. The documents say he had already shown a pattern of coercive and threatening behavior toward other female cadets, and that the Academy knew it. He was not issued a no-contact order or restricted from freshman dorms until months after the assault. He was later encouraged to voluntarily disenroll for poor grades. He received an honorable discharge.
Foster reported the assault near the end of her freshman year, to a cadet in a leadership role and four friends. One friend told a campus chaplain, who discouraged her from reporting it further.
In March 2020, Foster’s boyfriend, a fellow cadet, died by suicide. Sometime in the following months, Foster attempted to take her own life by hanging. Another cadet stopped her. The lawsuit says the Academy never formally activated its disaster mental health team for her, and that a doctor’s evaluation afterward consisted of a one-page intake form.
That October, the Academy required Foster to complete a physical fitness test despite an injury. She failed. Officials would not initially tell her by how much. The lawsuit says she found out only after repeated requests: she had missed passing by one point.
Foster was assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio the following May. Her supervisor there bullied her, the lawsuit says, criticizing her for attending college classes outside of work. Foster died six months later.
She left a note for her parents, telling them not to blame themselves. “The Academy does not care,” she wrote. “They will let you down.”
The Air Force denied the Fosters’ first wrongful death claim in 2025. Bradford Hunt, an Air Force judge advocate, wrote to their attorney that federal law generally bars the government from liability for injuries connected to military service, and that after careful review, he had to deny the claim. He added that he could not imagine the pain the family had experienced, and that he was grateful for Foster’s service. The July lawsuit followed that denial into federal court.
A separate 2022 Air Force investigation cleared Foster’s Wright-Patterson supervisor of the bullying allegations. The Fosters obtained the full report only through a public records request. It arrived with 159 pages blacked out. Two years later, a civilian employee at the same base contacted the Fosters directly. She said the same supervisor had bullied and harassed her too, and that she had filed multiple complaints against him.
Gary Foster, Cailin’s father, is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and an Academy graduate himself. He has pushed for legal reform alongside the lawsuit. “You don’t expect to be sexually assaulted when you join the military,” he said. “That’s not incidental to military service.”
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: A young officer died after her own military academy allegedly failed to protect her, then allegedly failed to treat the trauma that followed. The Air Force’s own internal response, when it finally came, denied liability while expressing personal sympathy in the same letter. Her family has now taken the case to federal court, five years after her death.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text. Service members, veterans, and their families can also reach the Veterans Crisis Line at 988, press 1. Survivors of sexual assault can reach RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673, or the DoD Safe Helpline at 877-995-5247 for military-connected support.
Sources: Military Times (US, military trade press — full case narrative, Hunt’s denial letter, suicide note, July 13 lawsuit filing); Stars and Stripes (US, military trade press — Wright-Patterson investigation, blacked-out report, second employee complaint); HM2 Buck for Hope Foundation (US, veteran advocacy — Feres Doctrine background, Gary Foster’s quote on military service)
250 DAYS AT SEA
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for more than 250 days. That is the longest continuous deployment for a US aircraft carrier in the modern era.
The carrier left San Diego on November 21 for a routine Pacific deployment. The Navy redirected it to the Middle East in January. It has supported US operations against Iran since. The ship was supposed to come home in May. It never did.
Sailors have had two days off the ship since leaving San Diego, families say.
Family members describe conditions aboard as deteriorating. Meals have shrunk to single meat patties on sparse trays. Sailors report losing weight. Toilets and plumbing have broken down. Mold has spread through parts of the ship. One family says a $2,000 care package never arrived.
Family members say multiple sailors have attempted to jump overboard. In one case, a sailor’s shipmate pulled him back from the edge. The Navy says officials have not identified an increase in reported suicidal thoughts or attempts aboard the ship, and that mental health resources remain available.
One mother said a doctor or therapist aboard the ship warned that sailors needed to reach port before people started “losing their minds.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week demanding a full accounting of the deployment’s extensions, including who authorized each one and why. Rep. Ruben Gallego separately asked to bring a bipartisan group of lawmakers aboard to investigate conditions directly.
Angry family members confronted acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao at a town hall in San Diego last week. The meeting turned combative.
The Navy has now confirmed relief is coming. The USS George Washington is transiting toward the region to take over the Lincoln’s mission. No official return date has been announced.
The Lincoln’s strain is not isolated. The Navy is separately investigating whether sailors aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford deliberately caused a shipboard fire to cut short their own deployment, which had also stretched past 11 months amid the same war.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: Nearly 5,000 American sailors and Marines have spent the better part of a year at sea, fighting a war most Americans have stopped paying close attention to. Their families are now describing conditions aboard as genuinely dangerous, and Congress is demanding answers. A second carrier crew may have set their own ship on fire just to go home.
Sources: IBTimes UK (UK — deployment record, timeline, food and supply conditions); World Socialist Web Site (US — family accounts, “losing their minds” quote, home port relocation plans); KPBS (US, public radio — USS George Washington relief, Navy’s official statement); Military Times (US, military trade press — Blumenthal letter, Gallego request); CNN (US — town hall confrontation, overboard incident); IBTimes UK (UK — USS Gerald R. Ford investigation)
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NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION 🇮🇷 Iran: 3,636 killed
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 4,333 killed
🇮🇱 Israel: 1,200+ killed, ~5,400 wounded (includes 472 killed, 3,004 wounded in Gaza)
🇺🇸 US military: 18 killed, 687 wounded
🇵🇸 Gaza: 73,381+ Palestinians killed, 174,231 wounded
🛢️ Brent crude: $87.97/barrel
⛽ US gas: $4.08/gallon Sources: HRANA (Iran), Lebanon MOPH, INSS (Israel), DCAS (US, disputed — see Aug 4 story), OCHA (Gaza), OilPrice.com, AAA.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
