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US President Donald Trump will on Monday visit the Kennedy Center in Washington for the first time since his stunning takeover of the top arts venue that he branded too “woke.”Trump will lead a board meeting at the venue, where he installed himself as chairman and ousted the leadership a month ago as part of his broader blitz on almost every aspect of American life.The 78-year-old Republican railed in particular against drag shows at the venue, amid a wider targeting of trans issues by his administration since returning to office.But the changes have faced opposition, with concertgoers booing Vice President JD Vance last week and the hit musical “Hamilton” canceling a planned run at the Kennedy Center.”We have to straighten it out,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday about his visit to the center. “It’s not a good system, like everything else in this country.”The White House said Trump would take part in a board meeting and tour of the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center, named after the US president who was assassinated in 1963.In an extraordinary step, the board meeting will take place onstage at the venue’s opera house, CBS News reported.Trump’s shake-up stunned the Kennedy center, a fixture of Washington cultural life which is based in a huge white marble edifice overlooking the Potomac river and next door to the infamous Watergate complex.He fired its chairman and trustees and named himself as the new leader in February, an unprecedented takeover of a cultural venue by a US president.- ‘Destroyed’ -Trump then filled the board with ultra-loyalist allies including his powerful chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Second Lady Usha Vance.At the time, Trump told reporters that “we didn’t like what they were showing” at the center and that once he took over “it’s not going to be woke.”In a Truth Social post he added that the center had “featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”The move came amid a wider targeting of trans issue and diversity by the Trump administration, and a crackdown on his political opponents.In his first term from 2017 to 2021, the Republican regularly skipped the Kennedy Center’s yearly gala event because people slated to receive awards criticized him and said they would not show up if he did.The Kennedy Center is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and also offers theatre, opera, comedy and other productions.Last week Vance and his wife were loudly booed as they entered the concert hall for a performance by the orchestra. Videos of the incident went viral.Meanwhile the producer of “Hamilton”, the hit rap musical about the birth of the United States and its first treasury secretary, said earlier this month that he was canceling its latest run in protest at Trump’s “purge.””In recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed,” Jeffrey Seller wrote.

US retail sales logged smaller gains than expected in February according to government data released Monday, edging up from an earlier decline with all eyes on consumer spending strength amid growing worries of a recession.Consumers are a key driver of the world’s biggest economy, and spending has been helped by a resilient job market and wage growth. But households have since drawn down on savings accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic.President Donald Trump’s economic policies — which so far include sweeping tariff hikes and sharp cuts to the federal government — have also bogged down consumer confidence in recent weeks. In February, retail sales crept up by 0.2 percent from January to $722.7 billion, according to Commerce Department data.The figure was an improvement from January’s 1.2 percent decline in sales, although a consensus forecast of analysts expected a larger uptick of 0.7 percent in February according to Briefing.com.January’s number was revised to reflect a larger drop than in advance estimates.Since taking office, Trump has imposed sweeping tariff hikes on major US trading partners and key materials like steel and aluminum — moves that economists warn could fuel inflation in the near-term if maintained. Trump’s policies have also roiled markets.But officials refer to tariffs as a means to raise government revenue while pointing to a broader slate of policies to come, including deregulation and tax cuts, when asked about recent shake-ups.- Risk of weakness -From a year ago, retail sales were up 3.1 percent in February, the government data showed.Among sectors, sales at motor vehicles and parts dealers dropped 0.4 percent between January and February.Sales at restaurants and bars fell by 1.5 percent on a monthly basis, while those at electronics stores and gasoline stations slipped as well.The overall report, however, should alleviate concerns that the economy is already shrinking, said economist Samuel Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics.But “the risk of much weaker growth, as consumers seek to rebuild a savings buffer in response to concerns about job security, now looks elevated,” he said in a note.Robert Frick, corporate economist with the Navy Federal Credit Union, expects that consumer income is a key factor that will influence spending in the future, adding that this is still “growing at a good rate.””Consumers have shown just in the recent past that despite deep worries over inflation and Covid, they’ll still spend if the dollars are there,” he said.The full effects of Trump’s tariff policies and government cuts are still flowing through the US economy, however.Last week, a study showed that consumer confidence declined sharply in March — for a third straight month — with many consumers citing a high level of policy uncertainty and other economic factors.

A pair of US astronauts stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station will be returned to Earth on Tuesday evening, NASA said.Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are to be transported home with another American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft, after a replacement crew arrived at the ISS early Sunday. The stranded duo have been on the ISS since June after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed voyage suffered propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.NASA said in a statement on Sunday evening that it had moved forward the astronauts’ anticipated ocean splashdown off the Florida coast to approximately 5:57 pm Tuesday (2157 GMT). It was initially slated for no sooner than Wednesday.”The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week,” the space agency said.NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also return on the Dragon capsule, with the journey to be broadcast live from Monday evening when hatch closure preparations begin.For Wilmore and Williams, it will mark the end of an ordeal that has seen them stuck for nine months after what was meant to have been a days-long roundtrip.Their prolonged stay was significantly longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months. But it is much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station.Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families — they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough — has garnered interest and sympathy.

Donald Trump declared Monday he has annulled preventative pardons issued by former president Joe Biden to members of Congress who angered Trump by investigating the attempt to overturn the 2020 US election.It was unclear what, if any authority Trump has to void presidential pardons issued by his predecessor.The Republican claimed that Biden’s signature on the documents had been carried out with a commonly used device known as an autopen and therefore was not valid — without providing evidence either for the autopen or his contention that it would invalidate the signature.The pardons “are hereby declared void, vacant, and of no further force or effect, because of the fact they were done by Autopen,” Trump posted on his social media account Truth Social.Biden issued pardons to former senior Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney and other members of the congressional committee that had investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters and multiple attempts by Trump to overturn the election in which he lost.The Biden pardons, issued at the end of his presidency, were effectively a blanket immunity to shield the lawmakers from Trump’s repeated promises that he would take revenge against them if he won the 2024 election.Trump appeared to acknowledge that his action entered disputed legal territory. Asked by reporters early Monday whether everything Biden signed with an autopen should be voided, Trump said “I think so. It’s not my decision, that’ll be up to a court.”But he said the committee members “should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level.”Biden also issued preemptive pardons to former Covid pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley, and — perhaps most controversially — to close family members including his son Hunter. All of them had become public targets of the incoming Republican president.Trump has repeatedly promised “retribution” against his political opponents and threatened some with criminal prosecution, and Biden said at the time that he could not “in good conscience do nothing.”On taking office this January, Trump immediately issued multiple pardons to supporters, including to about 1,500 people convicted in the storming of the Capitol building in an attempt to block certification of Biden’s election victory on January 6, 2021.

The death toll from tornadoes and violent storms that ravaged the central and southern United States over the weekend has risen to at least 40 people, with dozens more injured, local authorities said.Local news channels across the affected region showed video of roofs torn off homes, trees felled, and trucks overturned by high winds.Eight people died in Kansas in a crash involving more than 50 vehicles, caused by low visibility during a “severe dust storm,” local police said.In Oklahoma, four people were killed as wildfires and strong winds swept across the state, the local emergency management department said.Mississippi’s state governor said in a post on X that at least six people had been killed there, with three still missing.”We are actively monitoring the severe tornadoes and storms that have impacted many States across the South and Midwest,” President Donald Trump posted earlier Sunday on Truth Social, putting the toll at 36.He said National Guard troops were deployed in Arkansas, where officials said three people had died and 32 had been injured in the storm.”The damage is overwhelming,” Missouri governor Mike Kehoe said in a statement after visiting some of the hardest-hit areas in that state.”Homes and businesses have been destroyed, entire communities are without power, and the road to recovery will not be easy.”Earlier, the Missouri State Highway Patrol confirmed 12 storm-related fatalities and shared images of boats piled on top of one another at a marina destroyed by the weather.In Texas, local authorities said four people had died in vehicle accidents linked to dust storms and fires that reduced visibility on the roads.The United States saw the second-highest number of tornadoes on record last year with nearly 1,800, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), trailing only 2004.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they attacked an American aircraft carrier group twice within 24 hours as they prepared for huge rallies on Monday after US strikes left dozens dead.The response from the Huthis follows attacks on Saturday ordered by President Donald Trump that hammered the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, and several other areas, killing 53 people, according to the rebels.The United States struck the Huthis over their repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping sparked by the Gaza war, which have put a major strain on the vital trade route.The rebels said they had hit back by firing 18 missiles and a drone at the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier group on Sunday, before launching a second strike hours later.There was no immediate comment from the United States about the Huthis’ claimed attacks.In a statement posted to Telegram, a Huthi spokesperson said the attacks were “in retaliation to the continued American aggression against our country”.Washington has vowed to keep striking Yemen until the rebels stop attacking Red Sea shipping, with Trump warning he would use “overwhelming lethal force”.Huthi leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi called for large-scale rallies on Monday, the anniversary of the Battle of Badr — an against-the-odds, seventh-century military victory by the Prophet Mohammed.”I call on our dear people to go out tomorrow on the anniversary of the Battle of Badr in a million-strong march in Sanaa and the rest of the governorates,” he said in a televised address late on Sunday.- Heavy strikes -Sanaa’s Al Sabeen Square, the scene of regular major protests during the Israel-Hamas war, looked set to be packed once again for Monday’s rally.Late on Saturday, the Huthi-controlled capital was hit by heavy strikes, including in northern districts frequented by the rebels’ leadership.The Huthi health ministry said women and children were among the 53 people killed and 98 wounded.”The house shook, the windows shattered, and my family and I were terrified,” father of two Ahmed, who declined to give his full name, told AFP.The strikes were the first since Trump came to office in January, and came despite a pause in the Huthis’ attacks during a ceasefire in the Gaza war.On Sunday, US officials vowed further strikes until the rebels ended their campaign against Red Sea shipping, also threatening action against Iran.Huthi media reported more explosions late on Sunday night, accusing the Americans of targeting a cotton facility in the Hodeida region and the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship hijacked in November 2023.In response to the latest escalation along the maritime trade route, the United Nations urged both sides to “cease all military activity”, while China reiterated calls for diplomacy.”The reasons behind the situation in the Red Sea and the Yemen issue are complex and should be properly resolved through dialogue and negotiation,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.- ‘Hell will rain down’ -The Iran-backed Huthis, who control much of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, have attacked Israel and shipping vessels throughout the Gaza war, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.Before this weekend’s targeting of the US carrier group, the Huthis had not claimed attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since January 19, when the ceasefire in Gaza began.However, the group had recently threatened to resume its attacks over Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory. It said it would “move to additional escalatory options” if the “American aggression” continued.US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told ABC News that Saturday’s strikes “targeted multiple Huthi leaders and took them out”. The Huthis have not responded to Waltz’s claim.Trump, meanwhile, has warned the Yemeni group that “hell will rain down upon you” if it did not stop its attacks. In a social media post he also addressed Iran, demanding it stop supporting “Huthi terrorists”.Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the US strikes and said Washington had “no authority” to dictate Tehran’s foreign policy.A database set up by ACLED, a non-profit monitor, shows 136 Huthi attacks against warships, commercial vessels, and Israeli and other targets since October 19, 2023.While the Red Sea trade route normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, Huthi attacks have forced many companies into costly detours around southern Africa.The United States had already launched several rounds of strikes on Huthi targets under former president Joe Biden.Israel has also struck Yemen, most recently in December, after Huthi missile fire towards Israeli territory.In addition to their actions in the Red Sea, the rebels have been at war for nearly a decade with a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognised government, from which the Huthis have seized large swathes of territory.Fighting in that conflict has largely been on hold since a 2022 ceasefire, but the promised peace process has stalled in the face of the Huthi attacks on shipping.burs/th/smw

At least 40 people were killed and dozens more injured by tornadoes and violent storms that ravaged the central and southern United States at the weekend, local authorities said.Local news channels across the affected region showed video of roofs torn off homes, trees felled, and trucks overturned by high winds.Eight people died in Kansas in a crash involving more than 50 vehicles, caused by low visibility during a “severe dust storm”, local police said.In Oklahoma, four people were killed as wildfires and strong winds swept across the state, the local emergency management department said.”We are actively monitoring the severe tornadoes and storms that have impacted many States across the South and Midwest,” President Donald Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social.He said National Guard troops were deployed in Arkansas, where officials said three people had died and 32 had been injured in the storm.”The damage is overwhelming,” Missouri governor Mike Kehoe said in a statement after visiting some of the hardest-hit areas in that state.”Homes and businesses have been destroyed, entire communities are without power, and the road to recovery will not be easy.”Earlier, the Missouri State Highway Patrol confirmed 12 storm-related fatalities and shared images of boats piled on top of one another at a marina destroyed by the weather.In Texas, local authorities said four people had died in vehicle accidents linked to dust storms and fires that reduced visibility on the roads.The United States saw the second-highest number of tornadoes on record last year with nearly 1,800, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), trailing only 2004.

The United States flew more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to be imprisoned in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele said Sunday, after US counterpart Donald Trump controversially invoked wartime legislation to expel them.The deportations took place despite a US federal judge granting a temporary suspension of the expulsions order — apparently as planes were headed to El Salvador — raising questions over whether the Trump administration deliberately defied the court decision.”Oopsie … Too late,” Bukele posted on social media in response to an article on the judge’s ruling, adding a crying-with-laughter emoji.White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt denied that officials had refused to comply with the court order, which the Trump administration is appealing, as she said the deportees had already left the United States.”A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil,” Leavitt wrote in a statement.Civil rights groups have warned that if Trump’s invocation of the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act law is upheld in courts, it could allow the deportation of huge numbers of adult migrants without explanation or a court hearing.Bukele announced Sunday that 238 members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organization, had arrived in El Salvador.He shared a video on X of several men in handcuffs and shackles being transferred from a plane to a heavily guarded convoy, while the presidency shared photos showing prisoners’ heads being shaved upon arrival in El Salvador.AFP did not have access to the prisoners during their transfer nor was given details of the circumstances in which the images were taken. The El Salvador presidency released the only images of the event.The Washington Post, citing a White House official, said 137 of prisoners deported Saturday were under the Alien Enemies Act. It said a total of 261 people were deported.Bukele said the United States would “pay a very low fee” to El Salvador but did not specify the amount.- Mega-jail with windowless cells -In a post Sunday on his Truth Social platform, Trump referred to the deportees as “monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats,” and thanked El Salvador for receiving them.The US president on Friday had signed an order invoking the little-known Alien Enemies Act of 1798, but it was not publicly announced until Saturday.The wartime authority allows a president to detain or deport citizens of an enemy nation.It has been invoked only three times — during the War of 1812 to expel British nationals, during World War I against nationals from enemy nations and, most notoriously, during World War II for the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans.Bukele, in a meeting last month with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had offered to house prisoners from the United States in his country, including members of Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s own MS-13 gang.The iron-fisted leader is extremely popular in his country for a successful crackdown on violent gangs, but has faced criticism from human rights groups.Bukele said the alleged gang members had been sent to the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison southeast of the capital San Salvador with capacity for 40,000 prisoners.Inmates there are packed in windowless cells, sleep on metal beds with no mattresses and are forbidden visitors.- ‘Wartime powers’ -In a sharp rebuke Sunday, Venezuela’s government said Trump had “criminalized” Venezuelan migrants, whom it said were “in their immense majority… dignified and honest” workers.Trump, in his order, claimed Tren de Aragua was “conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime” in Caracas.The order will apply to all Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members who are over 14 and not naturalized US citizens or lawful permanent residents.The ACLU rights group and an allied group, Democracy Forward, asked a US District Court in Washington to bar the deportations — arguing that the 1798 act was not intended for use in peacetime.A Democracy Forward statement called Saturday a “horrific day in the history of the nation, when the president publicized that he was seeking to invoke extraordinary wartime powers in the absence of a war or invasion.”

US President Donald Trump says he plans to speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday about ending the war in Ukraine, adding discussions are already ongoing about “dividing up certain assets” between the warring parties.US officials had expressed optimism Sunday that a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire deal could be reached in weeks after Washington proposed a halt in fighting in the three-year war after talks in Saudi Arabia, which Kyiv accepted. “I think we’ll be talking about land… we’ll be talking about power plants,” Trump said aboard Air Force One.”I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We’re already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.”Washington and Kyiv’s European allies are pressing Moscow to accept a halt in the fighting, but Putin has given no clear answer — instead listing a string of conditions and raising “serious questions” over the proposal.Trump’s envoy for the conflict, Steve Witkoff, who met for several hours with Putin days ago, told CNN that he thinks “the two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week.”Trump, he added, “really expects there to be some sort of deal in the coming weeks, maybe, and I believe that’s the case”.Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused the Kremlin of not wanting to end the war. He warned that Moscow wanted to first “improve their situation on the battlefield” before agreeing to any ceasefire.- Rubio, Lavrov talk -Earlier, Moscow said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss “concrete aspects of the implementation of understandings” at a US-Russia summit in Saudi Arabia last month. February’s Riyadh gathering was the first high-level meeting between the United States and Russia since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022.”Sergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio agreed to remain in contact,” the Russian foreign ministry said, with no mention of the US-suggested ceasefire.State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Saturday that the pair had “discussed the next steps” on Ukraine, and “agreed to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia”.The Lavrov-Rubio call came hours after the UK hosted a virtual summit on Ukraine, at which Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused Putin of “dragging his feet” on the ceasefire.  “The ‘yes, but’ from Russia is not good enough,” Starmer said, calling for a stop to the “barbaric attacks on Ukraine once and for all”.On Sunday, Kyiv said Moscow had launched 90 Iranian-made Shahed drones onto nine Ukrainian regions.- ‘Force Putin’ to peace -In his reaction to the ceasefire earlier this week, Putin said the initiative would benefit primarily Ukraine, as Russian forces were “advancing” in many areas. He raised “serious questions” over the initiative. The proposal came as Russia — which occupies swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine — has the momentum in some areas of the front.It has pushed out Ukrainian forces from parts of its Kursk region, where Kyiv hopes to hold onto Russian territory as a potential bargaining chip in any future negotiations. Putin said he wanted to discuss Moscow’s concerns with Trump in a phone call. Late on Sunday, Zelensky said he had spoken with Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney.”The Prime Minister made the right points about how we need to step up pressure on Moscow,” he said.”The shadow fleet, the banking sector. We must impose all-out sanctions on everything that provides Russia with funding for its war. Only then can we force Putin to a just and lasting peace.”Carney is due in France on Monday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron that will cover the war in Ukraine, before travelling to London to meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.Canada has the presidency of the G7 nations this year.Also Sunday, Zelensky announced the chief of general staff of the armed forces, Anatoliy Bargylevych by Andriy Gnatov. Gnatov has been tasked with increasing efficiency in the armed forces.burs/jj/gv/cms/fox

Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed on Monday to have twice attacked an American aircraft carrier group within 24 hours, calling it retaliation for deadly US strikes.The Huthis initially said they launched 18 missiles and a drone at the “aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and its accompanying warships” in the Red Sea, before hours later claiming to have fired a second round.There was no immediate comment from the United States about the Huthis’ claimed attacks.In a statement posted to Telegram on Monday, a Huthi spokesperson said the attacks on the carrier group were “in retaliation to the continued American aggression against our country”.Washington has vowed to keep striking Yemen until the rebels stop attacking Red Sea shipping, with President Donald Trump warning he will use “overwhelming lethal force”.The Huthi health ministry said women and children were among the 53 people killed and 98 wounded in US strikes on Saturday.Huthi media reported more explosions on Sunday night, accusing the Americans of targeting a cotton ginning factory in the western region of Hodeida as well as the Galaxy Leader, an Israeli ship captured more than a year ago.Huthi leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi called on Yemenis to march on Monday in defiance.In response to the latest escalation along the maritime trade route, the United Nations has urged both sides to “cease all military activity”.The Iran-backed Huthis, who control much of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, have attacked Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, claiming to be acting in solidarity with Palestinians.Before this weekend’s targeting of the US carrier group, the Huthis had not claimed attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since January 19, when a ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip.The group said it relaunched its attacks over Israel’s halting of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and would “move to additional escalatory options” if “the American aggression against our country continues”.- ‘Terrified’ -Washington’s weekend strikes against the Huthis were the first since Trump’s return to the White House in January.US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told ABC News that Saturday’s strikes “targeted multiple Huthi leaders and took them out”.Trump meanwhile warned the Huthis that “hell will rain down upon you”. In a social media post addressed to Iran, the US president demanded the Islamic Republic stop supporting “Huthi terrorists”.The US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed a “large scale operation” against the Huthis, which it said on Sunday night was continuing.Witnesses in Sanaa described experiencing a “horrific explosion” that shook houses and shattered windows.Footage on Huthi media showed children, including a dazed girl with blackened legs wrapped in bandages, and a woman being treated in hospital.The Huthis have sealed off areas around the blast sites, however, making it impossible to gauge the true scale of the destruction.One father of two, who gave his name as Ahmed, told AFP: “I’ve been living in Sanaa for 10 years, hearing shelling throughout the war. By God, I’ve never experienced anything like this before”.”My family and I were terrified,” he added.Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the deadly US strikes and said Washington had “no authority” to dictate Tehran’s foreign policy.The Huthis’ political bureau said its “forces are fully prepared to confront escalation with escalation”.- ‘Fully prepared’ -A database set up by ACLED, a non-profit monitor, shows 136 Huthi attacks against warships and commercial vessels, as well as Israeli and other targets since October 19, 2023.While the Red Sea trade route normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, Huthi attacks have forced many companies into costly detours around southern Africa.The Palestinian group Hamas, which has praised Huthi support, branded the US strikes “a stark violation of international law and an assault on the country’s sovereignty and stability”.The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said: “Iran will not wage war, but if anyone threatens, it will give appropriate, decisive and conclusive responses.”The United States had already launched several rounds of strikes on Huthi targets.Israel has also struck Yemen, most recently in December, after Huthi missile fire towards Israeli territory.Fighting in Yemen’s own war has largely been on hold since a 2022 ceasefire, but the promised peace process has stalled in the face of the Huthi attacks on shipping.The war killed hundreds of thousands either directly or indirectly through causes such as disease, plunging Yemen into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.burs-lb/tym