Nation & World Glance
JERUSALEM — Syria fired missiles at Israeli warplanes on a mission to destroy a weapons convoy destined for the Iranianbacked Lebanese militant group Hezbollah prompting it to deploy its missile defense system, Israeli officials said Friday, in a rare military exchange between the two hostile neighbors.
The Israeli military said its aircraft struck several targets in Syria and were back in Israeli-controlled airspace when several anti-aircraft missiles were launched from Syria toward the Israeli jets.
Israeli aerial defense systems intercepted one of the missiles, the army said, without elaborating. It would not say whether any other missiles struck Israeli-held territory, but said the safety of Israeli civilians and Israeli aircraft was “not compromised.”
Military attack kills 42 Somali refugees off Yemen’s coast
HODEIDA, Yemen — The boat packed with dozens of Somali refugees was more than 30 miles off war-torn Yemen’s coast when a military vessel and a helicopter gunship swooped in, opening fire in the dead of night Friday, killing at least 42 people. The attack, which Yemen’s Shiite rebels blamed on a Saudi-led coalition, highlighted the perils of a heavily used migration route running from the Horn of Africa to the oil-rich Gulf, right through Yemen’s civil war.
The coalition has been heavily bombarding the nearby coast around the Yemeni port of Hodeida, where it accuses the rebels, known as Houthis, of smuggling weapons in small boats. There was no immediate coalition comment.
A Yemeni trafficker who survived the attack said the boat was filled with Somali refugees, including women and children, who were trying to reach Sudan from Yemen, which has been racked by conflict for more than two years.
Home explodes in DC suburb: ‘It’s just a pile of bricks’
ROCKVILLE, Md. — A house in a Maryland suburb of the nation’s capital was leveled early Friday by a thunderous explosion heard for miles around, a blast so powerful it shattered windows and caused other damage to several neighboring homes, authorities said.
The explosion shook the city of Rockville about 1 a.m. and scattered debris widely, a fire official said, adding that while the cause wasn’t immediately known.
As a precaution, utility workers turned off gas and power at the home and others nearby. Fire and utility officials also went door to door asking neighbors to leave for their safety. Yellow police tape cordoned off the site.
“It’s just a pile of bricks. There’s not anything left of the house,” said Pete Piringer, chief spokesman for Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service. “I’ve heard there were calls from miles away.”
Coroner: Man in fatal house fire was shot in the head
ST. LOUIS — A man found dead inside a burned home in southern Illinois had been shot in the head, and a gun was found in his ex-wife’s SUV after she drove into a nearby lake and died shortly after the fire was reported, authorities said Friday.
The pair’s infant son was pulled from the submerged SUV by a paramedic who swam through frigid water, quickly realized a baby and not a doll was floating inside, and performed CPR on the boy atop the vehicle’s roof. Six other children safely escaped the Thursday fire at the house, where the divorced parents — who had a history of domestic violence — both lived.
Preliminary autopsy re- sults released Friday show 37-year-old Justin Campbell died from the gunshot wound. But testing can’t be done to determine whether the gun found in Cristy Campbell’s SUV was used to shoot Campbell because the bullet that struck him hasn’t been found, according to Madison County Coroner Steve Nonn.
Running for president? Some states want tax returns public
HONOLULU — Lawmakers in nearly half the states want to add a requirement for presidential candidates: Show us your tax returns.
The issue has dogged President Donald Trump, who became the first presidential candidate in modern times to refuse to make his returns public. It flared anew this week after MSNBC said it had obtained two pages of Trump’s 2005 federal return, prompting the administration to release the documents preemptively.
State lawmakers around the country, mostly Democrats, want to ensure transparency in future presidential campaigns so voters can evaluate candidates’ sources of income and any possible conflicts of interest. Most of the bills would require presidential contenders to release copies of their returns as a condition for appearing on that state’s ballot, although it’s unclear whether they could pass constitutional muster.