Houthis may be low on anti-ship weapons, US commander says
WASHINGTON — Houthi rebels in Yemen may be running through their supplies of drone swarms and anti-ship ballistic missiles as the pace of their attacks has slowed a bit, the top U.S. Air Force commander for the Middle East said Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who heads U.S. Air Forces Central, said that the persistent American retaliatory strikes on the Iranbacked militia group have “certainly affected their behavior. Their pace of operations is not what it was.”
The Houthis have been conducting near daily attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, launching drones and missiles from rebel-held areas of Yemen. The attacks — which are often unsuccessful but at times have struck the ships — have disrupted a crucial shipping route.
In response, the U.S. and allies have been forced to increase their military ship presence along the waterway, and on several occasions have launched wider retaliatory strikes on ammunition, weapons and other facilities. U.S. ships and fighter jets have also been routinely bombing Houthi drones and missiles that are in place and preparing to launch.
Grynkewich said it’s difficult to know how much the Houthis’ weapons supplies have been eroded by the U.S. strikes, because officials didn’t have a detailed intelligence assessment of their capabilities before the attacks began.
The Houthis have defended their campaign as an effort to pressure Israel to end its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The ships they’ve targeted, however, have largely had little or no connection to Israel, the U.S. or other nations involved in the war.
Capitol riot sentence: A Washington state man who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Wednesday to more than seven years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said videos captured Taylor James Johnatakis, 40, of Kingston, Washington, playing a leadership role during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Johnatakis led other rioters on a charge against a police line, “barked commands” over his megaphone and shouted step-by-step directions for overpowering officers, the judge said.
A jury convicted him of felony charges after a trial last year in Washington, D.C.
Johnatakis was arrested in February 2021. He has been jailed since November 2023, when jurors convicted him of seven counts, including obstruction of the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that certified Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. The jury also convicted him of assault and civil disorder charges.
About 1,350 people have been charged with riot-related federal crimes, and more than 800 have been sentenced. Terms of imprisonment have ranged from several days to 22 years.
Electoral College votes:
With only months to go before what is shaping up to be a hotly contested presidential election, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen called on Nebraska lawmakers to move forward with a “winner-take-all” system of awarding Electoral College votes.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that split their electoral votes by congressional district, and both have done so in recent presidential elections. Both states’ lawmakers have also made moves to switch to a winnertake-all system and have found themselves frustrated in that effort.
In Nebraska, the system has confounded Republicans, who have been unable to force the state into a winner-take-all system since Barack Obama became the first presidential contender to shave off one of the state’s five electoral votes in 2008. It happened again in 2020, when President Joe Biden captured Nebraska’s 2nd District electoral vote.
Argentina economy: Argentina said Wednesday that it had cut 15,000 state jobs as part of President Javier Milei’s aggressive campaign to slash spending, the latest in a series of painful economic measures that have put the libertarian government on a collision course with angry protesters and powerful trade unions.
Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni announced the job cuts in a news conference, describing them as key to Milei’s promised shake-up of Argentina’s bloated public sector.
“It’s part of the work we are doing to reduce state expenses,” he told reporters.
The dismissed workers “perhaps did not have a very defined job,” he added. “Their salaries were being supported by a taxpayer.”
Hundreds of defiant employees — some notified of their termination last week and others before that — stormed their workplaces in Buenos Aires and nearby cities Wednesday, beating drums, decrying their dismissal as unjust and demanding reinstatement.
Milei campaigned for president while brandishing a chainsaw — promising to fix Argentina’s long-troubled economy by chopping down the size of the state. Determined to balance the country’s budget, he has
slashed energy and transportation subsidies, halted public works, cut payments to provincial governments and devalued the peso by over 50% to close the gap between the official exchange rate and the black market rate.
Finnish shooting: A 12-yearold student suspected of fatally shooting a classmate and wounding two others in Finland told police that he was bullied at school, officials said Wednesday, as a nation shocked by the attack held a day of mourning.
The suspect, a sixth grader who attended the school in the city of Vantaa, just outside Helsinki, was apprehended less than an hour following the shooting Tuesday morning. The shooter and the victims were classmates, police said.
Nkorean missile test: North Korea said Wednesday that it had tested a new hypersonic intermediaterange missile powered with solid propellants, extending a run of weapons tests
that’s deepening a nuclear standoff with neighbors and the United States.
With the supposed success of the demonstration, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared his country had acquired the ability to build solid-fuel, nuclear-capable missiles of all ranges as he pursues an arsenal that can credibly threaten rivals in Asia and the United States.
But the South Korean military said the North is exaggerating the success of the test and its overall missile prowess.
The report by North Korean state media came a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries detected a missile launched from near the North’s capital toward its eastern sea.
State media said the test was supervised by Kim, who described the Hwasong16b missile as a key piece of his nuclear deterrent he vowed to further build up to counter his “enemies,” a reference to the United States, South Korea and Japan.