WASHINGTON, Aug 4 – A U.S. judge on Tuesday granted the U.S. Justice Department’s bid to dismiss cases against members of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia who took part in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a court filing.

The ruling from Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta tosses out convictions of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and other members of the group who were convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to stop the transfer of power after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

All nine of the defendants had already been freed from prison as part of Trump’s sweeping move to pardon nearly all 1,600 people charged in the attack and commute the prison sentences of the remaining defendants. 

“Today’s epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy—the peaceful transfer of presidential power—to buckle,”  Mehta wrote. “The court cannot write a different ending.”

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Jasper Ward, editing by Michelle Nichols)

By Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – The United States has revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador in Washington over Brazil withholding formal diplomatic approval of the Trump administration’s appointed ambassador to Brasilia and denying visas to several U.S. diplomats, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.

Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti’s visa will be restored if the situation is resolved, said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

“The action was that the visa of a senior diplomat here was revoked or canceled. That is not the same thing as kicking the person out of the country. It means that they are here but without a visa, and would have their visa restored if the balance is restored by giving agrément to our chosen ambassadorial nominee,” the official said, referring to the diplomatic step of accepting an ambassador that is usually a formality.

The visa revocation is the latest development in a deepening rift between the governments of U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Trump officials have accused Lula’s government of censoring conservatives or tilting the scales against them in judicial proceedings, while Brazil has pushed back on what it sees as U.S. efforts to influence Latin American politics in favor of conservatives.

The Brazilian government didn’t immediately respond to the move.

Last month, Brazil said it had denied visas to officials from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, saying their visit was intended to undermine Brazil’s electoral system ahead of October polls.

That came after Brasilia had for weeks withheld formal approval for the ambassadorship of Daniel Perez, a Florida state representative and close ally of Secretary of State Marco Rubio who was nominated by Trump on June 1.

Reuters reported last week, citing a source, that Washington could take punitive action if Brazil’s government continued to withhold the formal diplomatic approval needed for the next U.S. ambassador to take up his post. 

“Basically we’ve had a situation in which our diplomats were being denied the ability to do routine common work between the two countries, and so you know under these circumstances, with the long delay and no promise of ending the impasse of the agrément, we’ve taken reciprocal action with respect to a Brazilian diplomat here to make the point that it can’t always be one-sided,” the official said. 

 Despite the action, the official said Washington put great importance on the relationship with Brazil and that it respected the Brazilian people in whatever government they choose through free and fair elections in Brazil. “We want to be back in a situation where we have a normal, productive, transparent relationship with our colleagues,” the official said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Daniel Wallis)

BEIRUT (AP) — An oil spill caused by leakage from a U.K.-sanctioned tanker grounded for weeks off Oman appears to be expanding dramatically, reaching shorelines and far out to sea, according to experts and satellite images reviewed by The Associated Press.

Greenpeace Germany said in a statement Monday that satellite images from a day earlier indicate the oil spill now covers an estimated 150 square kilometers (58 square miles), affecting large stretches of Qibliyah Island off Dhofar, Oman’s largest governorate.

Compared to satellite images from a week earlier, “it is a drastic increase,” said Nina Noelle of Greenpeace Germany, who noted that clearly a large amount of crude oil is leaking. Last week, the spill’s surface area was estimated at 20 square kilometers (8 miles.) It was not clear what has caused the leak to grow.

The images from Sunday showed an oil sheen spreading to the northeast from the 274-meter (899-foot) Suezmax tanker Caroline Bezengi, which is sanctioned by the U.K. for carrying oil that originates from Russia.

The affected area is part of the Arabian Sea reserve, a marine protected area and host to wildlife including endangered petrels and the rare Arabian Sea humpback whale.

Wim Zwijnenburg, an environmental expert for PAX, a Dutch organization that focuses on conflict and the environment, said the sheen is a thin layer of oil that often evaporates depending on the type of crude oil and weather conditions. Thick black patches of oil reached the southern and western shores of the island, he added.

Zwijnenburg said the oil sheen appears to be roughly 90 kilometers long (56 miles), nearly double its length a week ago.

He estimated that the tanker had been carrying over 800,000 barrels of crude oil.

The tanker has been grounded since June, according to two shipping and maritime news outlets which reported that the crew reported an explosion on board at the time. The AP was not able to independently confirm the reports.

The U.K. government said in its decision to sanction the vessel that it “has been or is likely to be involved in activity whose object or effect is to destabilize Ukraine” or to support the Russian government. The Cameroon-flagged tanker is also sanctioned by the European Union, Canada and Switzerland.

SynMax Maritime, a geospatial data tracking company, earlier said on X it obtained images in May showing the tanker at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in Russia before its most recent voyage.

“This dramatic expansion (of the oil spill) underscores the serious and continuing environmental threat posed by the stranded tanker — and exemplifies the dangers associated with the practices of Russia’s shadow fleet,” Greenpeace Germany said in its statement.

It was not clear where the ship had been going when it grounded off Oman.

Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology had ordered the ship’s owners to remove it and its cargo by July 23, according to the Omani Muscat Daily. It was not clear Tuesday if the owners have replied.

By Maria Cheng

OTTAWA, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Marc-Aurèle Chabot, a former active-duty Canadian soldier arrested last July for taking “concrete actions to facilitate terrorist activity,” is no longer a member of the armed forces, according to the Canadian military.

Chabot is believed to be the first active-duty military member charged with terrorist offenses under Canada’s criminal code.

The Canadian Armed Forces said in an email on Tuesday that Chabot, who achieved the rank of corporal, was “no longer a member.” The military said information related to his release “constitutes personal information and is protected under the Privacy Act.”

Chabot’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced in July 2025 they had arrested Chabot and two other men, Raphaël Lagacé and Simon Angers-Audet, for planning to seize land for an anti-government militia near Quebec City.

The RCMP said the men  “took part in military-style training, as well as ambush, shooting, survival and navigation exercises.” 

A fourth man, Matthew Forbes, who was also a serving member of the military at the time of his arrest, was charged with weapons charges, including possession of firearms, prohibited devices and explosives and transfer of firearms and ammunition, according to the RCMP.

Forbes “remains a member of the Canadian Armed Forces but is not currently performing military duties,” the military said on Tuesday.

 Facts surrounding the alleged plot are currently the subject of a publication ban in Canada. The Quebec Superior Court ordered the publication ban in February, according to a copy of the order seen by Reuters.  

Reuters has joined a media coalition contesting the ban. A hearing on the request to lift the publication ban is scheduled for September. 

(Reporting by Maria Cheng; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Suzanne Goldenberg)

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year is on track to smash into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning.

The school-bus-size object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025.

Weighing four metric tons (4,000 kg), the rocket body is due to hit the moon around 2:35 a.m. ET (0635 GMT), hitting its surface at 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 kph). The space junk will kick up a plume of lunar dust that will likely be illuminated by sunlight but difficult to spot with the naked eye from Earth.

The impact is unintentional, SpaceX said. The rocket piece is expected to hit Einstein Crater on the moon’s western limb, which is often difficult to see from Earth.

COSMIC FORCES NUDGED PIECE TO MOON

Such stages typically fall back into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up or plunge into the ocean after boosting the rocket’s payload to a precise spot in orbit. 

But because the January lunar lander mission required more thrust than missions closer to Earth, the rocket’s second stage remained in space, floating aimlessly among thousands of other pieces of space junk that active satellites must steer clear of.

It was not until earlier this year that astronomers determined that the rocket stage, which had dumped its remaining fuel and cannot be controlled, was on an orbital trajectory ending at the moon.

“What has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path toward the moon,” Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX director of NASA science and Dragon programs, told reporters on Monday.

“This may be of some — probably minor— scientific interest, and we may learn some things from it,” said Bill Gray, creator of widely used astronomy software who published a report on the stage’s impact in April.

“It doesn’t present any danger to anyone, though it does highlight a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware (space junk) is disposed of.”

Space junk impacts on the moon are rare. A Chinese rocket stage crashed into the moon in March 2022 after completing a lunar test mission. In 2009, NASA intentionally crashed a rocket stage into the moon to study the plume of lunar material kicked up by the impact.

Several spacecraft intending to softly land on the moon in recent years have crashed instead. Russia’s nuclear-powered Luna-25 mission spun out of control and crashed in 2023. Its small power source of plutonium-238 likely remains harmlessly on the lunar surface.

India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander mission crashed in 2019. Israel’s Beresheet lander crashed that same year. Among the Israeli lander’s payloads were tiny tardigrades, microscopic animals known for surviving radiation and other harsh environments and which may still be on the surface.

NASA intentionally crashed stages from its Saturn V moon rocket into the moon in the 1970s to study the impacts’ seismic effects.

NASA and SpaceX are discussing ways to prevent future lunar impacts, Scheiman said. The U.S. space agency plans to build a lunar base and send routine astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning later this decade under its multibillion-dollar Artemis program. It would not want errant pieces of space junk impacting those assets.

(Reporting by Joey RouletteEditing by Rod Nickel)

By Camillus Eboh

ABUJA, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has approved pay rises of up to 80% for members of the armed forces, the presidency said on Tuesday, in a move aimed at boosting troop welfare as the country battles insurgency, banditry and kidnappings.

The salary increase comes as Nigeria grapples with multiple security challenges across different regions.

Islamist insurgents, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), continue to stage attacks in the northeast, while heavily armed criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, operate across parts of the northwest.

Kidnappings for ransom have become widespread in parts of north-central Nigeria, while security forces also face periodic separatist-linked violence in the southeast.

Under the new pay structure, effective Sept. 1, officers above the rank of colonel, including generals, will receive a 30% salary increase. Personnel from colonel to warrant officer will receive a 50% raise, while soldiers from private to staff sergeant rank will see salaries rise by 80%, according to a statement by presidential adviser Bayo Onanuga.

The new package will increase the annual wage bill for the armed forces to 924 billion naira ($678.68 million) from 660 billion naira.

Successive governments have struggled to contain insecurity despite increased military deployments and spending, with attacks by armed groups continuing to strain security forces and communities.

Tinubu said his administration would continue to prioritise troop welfare and modernise the armed forces with the weapons and technology needed to tackle security threats.

($1 = 1,361.47 naira)

(Writing by Chijioke OhuochaEditing by Nick Zieminski)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya has introduced a cap on the amount of carbon emissions credits it will authorize for sale to overseas buyers, unveiling one of Africa’s most detailed rule books for international carbon trading.

The country has set a 10 million metric ton (11,023,113 ton) carbon dioxide equivalent budget for international carbon market transactions up to 2030. It establishes a ceiling against which every request will be assessed under the country’s new carbon markets guide.

The guide, released Monday, creates a framework for approving projects under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to trade emission reduction credits to help meet global climate targets.

“It introduces a national carbon budget for trading to safeguard our Nationally Determined Contribution,” or NDC, Environment Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa said.

The Paris Agreement, signed just over a decade ago, commits countries to keeping the rise in global temperatures by the year 2100 compared with preindustrial times “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and says they will “endeavor to limit” them even more, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Kenya’s carbon budget covers emissions reductions generated in the energy, transportation, industrial processes and waste sectors, with annual allocations capped at 1.67 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Officials say the cap is intended to prevent Kenya from overselling carbon credits that it may later need to meet its own NDC under the Paris Agreement.

The framework replaces an often uncertain approval process characterized by its three-stage decision pathway comprising No-Objection, Approval and Authorization.

“The guide establishes a national carbon budget for trading as a binding safeguard,” Environment and Climate Change Principal Secretary Festus Ng’eno said, adding that it provides state agencies with practical decision-making tools throughout a project’s life cycle.

The guide also introduces a conditional list of priority activities covering renewable energy, transportation and waste projects. Forests and other land-use projects are excluded for now while the country develops stronger baselines and data to manage reversal risks. Officials say inclusion on the list does not guarantee approval but is intended to speed the review of projects that align with Kenya’s development priorities.

Kenya has emerged as one of Africa’s largest carbon market destinations, attracting investments in clean cooking, renewable energy, mangrove restoration and forest conservation. The government says the new framework will improve investor confidence by making decisions more predictable while protecting climate integrity and ensuring local communities benefit from carbon market projects.

“Predictability, transparency, and institutional coherence are essential to attracting quality investment,” Ng’eno said, adding that government decisions will be based on “clear, published criteria designed to deliver national benefits without compromising Kenya’s climate integrity.”

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Princess Eugenie has given birth to a baby girl, her third child and first daughter, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday.

Eugenie, the younger daughter of the former Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, and husband, Jack Brooksbank, announced the birth of the 6-pound, 9-ounce (3 kilograms), girl delivered Monday in Lisbon, Portugal.

The girl was not named yet. The couple has two sons August, 5, and Ernest, 3.

Eugenie is the niece of King Charles III, the older brother of the former prince now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

“Their majesties the King and Queen and other members of the royal family were delighted to be informed of the news,” the palace said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of mourners dressed mostly in white walked through central Kyiv on Tuesday behind the open casket of a university student killed at the weekend by a Russian strike as she helped people wounded in an earlier attack.

The farewell for 20-year-old Vitalina Yarovenko began inside St. Michael’s golden-domed Cathedral, where clergy read prayers over the casket and relatives and friends approached her body to say goodbye.

Her family said they had asked mourners to wear white or traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts instead of black, so that Vitalina “would not feel too sad.”

Although Yarovenko was a civilian, her mother asked that she be given the kind of funeral procession used in Ukraine to honor fallen soldiers. Several hundred people followed her casket from the cathedral downhill toward Independence Square.

Traffic stopped for several minutes to allow the procession pass. Drivers stepped out of their cars and stood silently. Some knelt on one knee, while others placed a hand over their heart.

Yarovenko, a fourth-year psychology student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, had been an instructor at a military training school affiliated with the university.

In July, she began volunteering with the Hospitallers, a Ukrainian medical organization which is mostly focused on delivering frontline medical aid and whose teams travel to the sites of Russian attacks to treat and evacuate the wounded.

Early Saturday, Yarovenko rushed to the scene of a Russian missile strike that hit Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district. As she and other volunteers were at the scene, another strike hit the same location, according to her relatives and friends.

Ukrainian officials have previously accused Russia of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles — the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them. The tactic is called a “double tap” in military jargon.

At Independence Square, the crowd observed a minute of silence for those killed while defending Ukraine.

Yarovenko’s mother, Nataliia, stood holding a microphone in her right hand and a large portrait of her daughter in her left. Crying, her voice shaking, she said she was giving up the most precious thing she had.

“I have given up the meaning of my entire life, but I am immensely proud,” she said. “I don’t want a hero at home. I want my child at home. But this was her path.”

Beside her stood another mother, also named Nataliia, whose daughter, 25-year-old Eva Royce, was working alongside Yarovenko and was also killed.

Royce had not yet been buried because her remains were severely burned and the identification of recovered body parts was still underway. Her mother did not speak during Yarovenko’s ceremony as she mourned her own daughter.

Yarovenko had planned to enlist after completing her fourth year at university, said her friend Anastasiia Alieksieieva.

“Her decision to volunteer and help people in Kyiv after the attacks showed how committed she was to that plan,” Alieksieieva, 21, said. “She did not even make it to graduation.”

Another close friend, Anna Donets, 19, said Yarovenko had raised money for Ukraine’s military, volunteered at a military hospital and helped organize military training for youth.

“There are not many people like her, and she was going there to help people,” Donets said. “People like her shape the future, and others should follow them. But unfortunately, Russia kills them.”

Donets described Yarovenko as exceptionally funny and someone whose presence could lift those around her.

“We were remembering her humor yesterday and laughing because she was always teasing everyone. It was never boring with her,” she said. “At 8 in the morning on teaching days, when everyone else was exhausted, she would arrive as if she were stepping onto a runway. She was so beautiful — simply a queen.”

Serhii Beskrestnov, a family friend and a presidential adviser on defense technology development, struggled to find words.

“We understand that there is a war, that men and women are dying,” he said. “But when it happens away from the front, to people who are helping … I don’t know. I have no words right now.”

Russia launched 220 aerial weapons across Ukraine that night, including 35 missiles and 185 drones, Ukraine’s air force said. Twenty-seven missiles were ballistic Iskander-M missiles or missiles fired from S-400 systems. Ukrainian defenses intercepted only one of them, along with one guided air-launched missile.

At least nine people were killed and 33 were wounded in Kyiv that night, according to Ukrainian authorities. The attack underscored Ukraine’s critical shortage of Western-supplied defenses against ballistic missiles. Ukraine relies heavily on U.S.-made Patriot systems, but interceptor missiles remain in short supply.

At the end of the ceremony, mourners approached Yarovenko’s casket one by one, laying white flowers beside her. She was later buried at a military cemetery in Kyiv, a distinction rarely granted to civilians.

Her mother spoke of the future she had imagined for her daughter — and the future she said Ukrainians must still defend.

“We must withstand this war so that this land remains for our Ukrainian children,” she said. “Unfortunately, my child will now lie in this earth. I would have very much liked to give her a beautiful wedding, but today that is no longer possible.”

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Police from five Amazon countries have arrested hundreds of people and seized timber, minerals and thousands of livestock in one of the largest coordinated crackdowns on environmental crime ever carried out in the world’s largest rainforest.

Authorities from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru said Tuesday that Operation Green Shield 2026, which ran from July 15-31, deployed more than 3,600 officers targeting illegal mining, logging, wildlife trafficking, fuel smuggling and land grabbing — the illegal seizure or occupation of land, often followed by forest clearing — across the Amazon Basin.

The operation resulted in 839 arrests during 1,045 field actions and the seizure of more than 280,000 cubic meters (9.9 million cubic feet) of illegally harvested timber — enough to fill roughly 110 Olympic-sized swimming pools — along with 195 metric tons of minerals and equipment used in illegal mining like gold, carbon, iron and copper, according to officials. Authorities also rescued more than 3,000 live animals and recovered at least 430 dead animals linked to wildlife trafficking, including snakes, birds, lizards and fish.

Environmental crime has become one of the Amazon’s most profitable illicit industries, fueled by global demand for gold, timber and wildlife. Investigators say the same criminal organizations often combine illegal mining, logging and wildlife trafficking, using shared trafficking routes and financial networks that span national borders. Officials say that has made cross-border cooperation increasingly important, as criminal groups frequently move people and goods across neighboring countries to evade law enforcement.

The operation was coordinated from Colombian capital, Bogota, by the International Initiative of Law Enforcement for Climate, or I2LEC, a United Arab Emirates-backed initiative launched in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2023 to strengthen international cooperation against environmental crime.

The crackdown follows a similar multinational operation in 2025 that brought together more than 1,500 officers from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. That operation marked one of the first large-scale attempts to coordinate intelligence sharing and simultaneous enforcement across borders against environmental crime, reflecting growing concern that criminal groups involved in illegal mining, logging and wildlife trafficking increasingly operate across national boundaries.

This year’s operation expanded to include Bolivia and involved synchronized deployments in remote border and river regions, authorities said.

“The UAE leadership firmly believes that collaboration is essential to combating transnational crime,” Col. Dana Humaid, director general of the International Affairs Bureau at the UAE Ministry of Interior, said in a statement. “By working together, law enforcement agencies can achieve stronger results.”

Officials said the combined value of the goods seized during the operation exceeded $280 million.

Colombian National Police Director Gen. William Oswaldo Rincón Zambrano said the operation showed how intelligence sharing could be translated into coordinated enforcement.

“Protecting our natural resources requires a shared response,” he said.

Peruvian police environmental chief Gen. J. Manuel Cruz Chamba said environmental crimes “do not respect borders” and therefore require international cooperation.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.