US, UK strike Houthi targets in response to Red Sea ship attacks
WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Britain struck 18 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, answering a recent surge in attacks by the Iranbacked militia group on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, including a missile strike this past week that set fire to a cargo vessel.
According to U.S. officials, American and British fighter jets hit sites in eight locations, targeting missiles, launchers, rockets, drones and air defense systems. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to provide early details of an ongoing military operation.
This is the fourth time that the U.S. and Britain have conducted a combined operation against the Houthis since Jan. 12. But the U.S. has also been carrying out almost daily strikes on Houthi targets, including incoming missiles and drones aimed at ships, as well as weapons prepared to launch.
The U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets launched from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, officials said.
“The United States will not hesitate to take action, as needed, to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “We will continue to make clear to the Houthis that they will bear the consequences if they do not stop their illegal attacks.”
In a statement, the U.S., U.K., and other allies said the “necessary and proportionate strikes specifically targeted 18 Houthi targets across 8 locations in Yemen” that also included underground storage facilities, radar and a helicopter.
“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade, naval vessels, and the lives of innocent mariners in one of the world’s most critical waterways,” the statement said.
U.K. Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said RAF Typhoon jets engaged in “precision strikes” aimed at degrading Houthi drones and launchers.
President Joe Biden and other senior leaders have repeatedly warned that the U.S. won’t tolerate the Houthi attacks against commercial shipping. But the counterattacks haven’t appeared to diminish the Houthis’ campaign against shipping in the region, which the militants say is over Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthis have launched at least 57 attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since Nov. 19, and the pace has picked up in recent days.
Buffett’s annual letter: Warren Buffett credited his longtime partner, the late Charlie Munger, with being the architect of the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate he’s received the credit for leading and warned shareholders in his annual letter Saturday not to listen to Wall Street pundits or financial advisers who urge them to trade often.
Buffett told investors that Berkshire is a safe place to park their cash as long as they don’t expect the “eye-popping performance” of its past because there are no attractively priced acquisition targets out there big enough to make a meaningful difference in the Omaha, Nebraska-based company’s results. But he said Berkshire will be ready to swoop in with its $167.6 billion whenever the casino-like stock market seizes up.
Buffett, 93, is revered for his remarkably successful track record and the sage advice he has offered over the decades. His annual letter is always one of the most-read reports in the business world.
Nonbinary Okla. teen: More than two dozen people gathered at an Oklahoma church for a vigil for Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager who died one day after a fight in a high school bathroom in the Tulsa suburb of Owasso.
The vigil at All Saints Episcopal Church in McAlester was organized by the McAlester Rainbow Connection. It was one of two Friday night in Oklahoma, the first of more than a dozen vigils scheduled nationwide through Monday.
Nex Benedict, a 16-yearold Oklahoma student, died Feb. 8.
Owasso police have since said Benedict’s death was not a result of injuries suffered in the fight, based on the preliminary results of an autopsy.
The police department has said it won’t comment further on the teen’s cause of death until toxicology and other autopsy results are completed.
Escaped owl: Tributes poured in Saturday for Flaco, the beloved Eurasian eagleowl that became a feel-good New York story after escaping its Central Park Zoo enclosure and flying free around Manhattan.
Flaco was found dead on a New York City sidewalk Friday night after apparently flying into a building. It was a heartbreaking end for the birders who documented the owl’s daily movements and the legions of admirers who eagerly followed along.
Staff from the Wild Bird Fund, a wildlife rehabilitation center, declared Flaco dead shortly after the collision. A necropsy was expected Saturday.
Flaco was freed from his cage at the zoo a little over a year ago by a vandal who breached a waist-high fence and cut a hole through a steel mesh cage. The owl had arrived at the zoo as a fledgling 13 years earlier.
UK bomb disposal: A World War II-era bomb whose discovery prompted one of the largest peacetime evacuations in British history has been detonated at sea, the Ministry of Defence said Saturday.
The 1,100-pound explosive was discovered Tuesday in the backyard of a home in Plymouth, a port city on the southwestern coast of Britain. More than 10,000 residents were evacuated to ensure their safety as a military convoy transported the unexploded bomb through a densely populated residential area to a ferry slipway, from which it was taken out to sea.
Plymouth, home to major naval bases for centuries, was one of the most heavily bombed cities in Britain during the World War II. Fifty-nine separate air raids killed 1,174 civilians, according to local officials. The raids destroyed almost 3,800 homes, and heavily damaged another 18,000.
Spain building fire: The death toll from a dramatic fire that left two residential buildings charred in the Spanish city of Valencia rose to 10 on Saturday after authorities announced they had located the remains of what they believed was the last missing person.
It was not immediately known how many people were in the two buildings when the fire broke out, but the complex had some 140 apartments.
The blaze that appeared to begin in one home Thursday afternoon engulfed the rest of the 14-story apartment block in less than an hour, raising questions about whether construction materials used on the façade may have contributed to the fire spreading so furiously.