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US aid to rebel-held north in Yemen starts again as famine looms
The United States announced a resumption of aid to Yemen’s rebel-held north on Friday to fight a looming famine as the country’s nearly six-year-old war grinds on. U.N. officials warned that a blockade of fuel deliveries to a main port was heightening the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The aid concern came as President Joe Biden’s envoy to Yemen expressed frustration at the country’s Houthi rebels, saying they were focusing on fighting to capture more territory while an international and regional diplomatic push was underway to end the conflict.
“Tragically, and somewhat confusingly for me, it appears that the Houthis are prioritizing a military campaign” to seize central Marib province, envoy Tim Lenderking said. He spoke in an online event sponsored by the Atlantic Council think tank, after his more than two-week trip in the region to push for a cease-fire and ultimately a peace deal.
The developments deepen the challenges for the Biden administration as it goes out on a limb to try to end the Yemen war through diplomacy, reversing previous U.S. administrations’ support for an inconclusive Saudi-led military offensive that tried to roll back the Iran-allied Houthi rebels. The rebels have shown no sign of relenting despite Biden’s diplomatic overtures, adding to tensions between the U.S. and its strategic partner Saudi Arabia.
Lenderking said the Houthis have had a ceasefire proposal before them for a “number of days” and urged them to respond positively.
He gave no details, including whether the proposal was new or an updated version of a nationwide cease-fire plan that U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths announced last year.
Fighting and massive displacement of people, crippling fuel shortages and rising food prices have 50,000 Yemenis already facing famine and 5 million more a step away from it, the United Nations says. It projects 400,000 Yemeni children under 5 are at risk of dying this year from malnutrition.
WHO gives OK to J&J: The World Health Organization granted an emergency use listing Friday for the coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson, meaning the one-dose shot can now theoretically be used as part of the international COVAX effort to distribute vaccines globally, including to poor countries without any supplies.
In a statement, the U.N. health agency said “the ample data from large clinical trials” shows the J&J vaccine is effective in adult populations. The emergency use listing comes a day after the European Medicines Agency recommended the shot be given the green light across the 27-country European Union.
WHO has previously signed off on COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca.
A massive study that spanned three continents found the J&J vaccine was 85% effective in protecting against severe illness, hospitalizations and death.
That protection remained strong even in countries like South Africa where variants have been identified that appear to be less susceptible to other licensed vaccines, including the one made by AstraZeneca.
According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been nearly 120 million confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide and more than 2.6 million have died from COVID-19. The U.S. has the highest number of deaths with over 532,000.
$1.05B jackpot claimed:
A four-member suburban Detroit lottery club won a $1.05 billion Mega Millions jackpot and will receive $557 million after taxes, officials said Friday.
The winners claimed their prize weeks after the Jan. 22 drawing and chose the immediate lump sum option. After taxes, the $776 million payment was reduced to about $557 million, the Michigan Lottery said.
The names of the four Oakland County club members were not released. The Wolverine FLL Club had the only jackpot-winning ticket.
The $1.05 billion jackpot was the largest in Michigan Lottery history and third-largest in the United States.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
More students abducted:
Gunmen have attacked a school in northwestern Nigeria and kidnapped 39 students just weeks after a similar mass abduction in the region, authorities said Friday.
The latest kidnapping took place late Thursday night at the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, in the Igabi local government area of Kaduna state, police said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the abduction and called for “the immediate and unconditional release of those students that remain in captivity,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
DA in Trump probe won’t run again: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a veteran prosecutor overseeing a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump, said Friday he won’t seek reelection, opting against a primary fight with progressive candidates who say he’s a relic and not a reformer.
Vance made the announcement in a memo to staffers, ending months of speculation about his future and almost certainly guaranteeing it’ll be a different D.A. who sees the Trump case through. Vance’s term expires at the end of the year.
Vance, a Democrat, counted Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction a year ago among his crowning achievements but faced withering criticism over other high-profile cases, including dropping rape charges against French financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011 and declining to prosecute Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. over fraud allegations in 2012.
His decision not to seek reelection was widely anticipated, but he held off on making it official while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed whether his office could obtain Trump’s tax records.
The court ruled in Vance’s favor last month.
Narco-submarine seized:
Spanish police announced Friday that they seized a homemade narco-submarine able to carry up to 2.2 tons of cargo.
Police came across the 30-feet-long craft last month while it was being built in Malaga, on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, during a broader international drug operation involving five other countries and the European Union crime agency Europol.
The 10-feet-wide semisubmersible craft is made of fiberglass and plywood panels attached to a structural frame, has three portholes on one side. It has two 200-horsepower engines operated from the inside.