Iran-backed Houthi forces have captured Mayun Island, also known as Perim, at the narrowest point of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, giving the group a foothold over shipping lanes that carry a large share of Europe-Asia trade. Yemen's Saudi-backed government called for international help. Analysts say the move opens a new front in the wider Iran war and lets the Houthis threaten tankers from the shoreline. Oil has traded above $100 a barrel and US diesel hit a record $6 a gallon. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West crude pipeline after several attacks.
Saudi Arabia has closed its 1,200km East-West oil pipeline after drone strikes that Riyadh says were launched from Iraq, removing a route the kingdom used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Iraq fired the operations commander in Maysan governorate and opened an investigation after confirming the launch site. Riyadh called the shutdown precautionary and said it would not retaliate for now. Reuters estimates the line had been moving 4% to 5% of global oil supply. The attack lands as Houthi forces in Yemen claim control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, pushing crude above $100 a barrel for the first time since July.
Houthi forces in Yemen have taken Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Yemeni officials and news agencies, days after seizing the Red Sea port city of Mokha. The island divides the southern gateway to a trade route linking Asia and Europe, so control of it raises new risks for commercial shipping. Saudi Arabia ships oil in bulk to Asian buyers on tankers that pass Yemen and the strait, and that traffic is now exposed. The escalation has already helped push oil prices higher. Yemen's civil war began in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa, and a Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the country for more than a decade.
President Donald Trump marked the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at an event on the Ellipse outside the White House, saying the country would never forget the victims. The ceremony, organized by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, centered on a 21-foot, nearly 17,000-pound steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center's South Tower that spent months crossing the country. Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Welles Crowther, the equities trader known as the man in the red bandanna, and honored firefighter Jeffrey Palazzo, for whom the Coast Guard will name a new cutter. The beam travels through New York on Friday, and Trump is scheduled to attend a Pentagon ceremony later in the day.
Two weeks after catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border, the confirmed death toll has passed 1,000 and roughly 4,000 people remain unaccounted for, most of them in Nepal. The Aug. 26 disaster began when ice and debris collapsed from Lirung Peak and sent a torrent of mud and water down the Trishuli River valley, destroying villages and flooding tunnels at hydroelectric projects. More than 21,000 security personnel joined the search before officials shifted focus to rehabilitation. Scientists say the flood was nearly impossible to forecast, and a review found Nepal's official SMS alert system arrived late and lacked location-specific guidance, while community warning networks saved lives. Researchers warn that warming is destabilizing Himalayan glaciers and that similar disasters will become more common.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels attacked oil facilities and utility sites across southern Saudi Arabia early Tuesday, wounding at least 73 people, including women and children, and forcing some energy operations to stop. Saudi-led coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki called the strikes a serious escalation and promised retaliation. The assault came hours after the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for an airstrike on a prison in Yemen's Jawf province that killed at least seven people. The flare-up has ended a four-year truce in Yemen's civil war. The World Health Organization says at least 194 people have been killed and more than 880 wounded since August 23, and the United Nations reports more than 21,000 people newly displaced.
Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party won a landslide victory in Sunday's state election in Saxony-Anhalt, doubling its previous vote share to 43.8 percent. The center-right CDU, which has governed the eastern state since 2002, collapsed to 17.2 percent after winning 37.1 percent in the last election. The AfD still fell short of an absolute majority, so it cannot form a state government on its own. Mainstream parties have ruled out working with the AfD, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the result a turning point for the country. Negotiations over who will run the state now begin, with party leaders weighing how to respond to the far right's strongest-ever result.
The U.S. military said it struck three Iranian crude oil tankers on Saturday after Iran's Revolutionary Guard fired ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships. One tanker was hit off Kharg Island, another near Jask east of the Strait of Hormuz, and an unladen tanker was struck in the Gulf of Oman. The strikes end a lull of about a month and add fresh pressure on shipping through the strait that carries a large share of the world's oil. Iran's foreign ministry condemned the action as illegal, and state media threatened wider attacks on U.S. vessels. At least five people were killed earlier in the week during a U.S. bombardment of southern Iran, and oil prices climbed as traders weighed the risk to exports.
Rescuers in Nepal pulled two workers alive from a hydropower tunnel on Friday, nine days after flash floods devastated the region. The men were rescued from the main tunnel of the Trishuli 3A hydropower project in Rasuwa district and flown to a hospital in Kathmandu in stable condition. The August 26 flood, believed to have been caused by a glacier collapse, killed more than 1,200 people in Nepal. At least 557 workers are missing from the project, with about 115 believed trapped in the tunnel, according to the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal. Rescuers heard voices before the breakthrough, and army teams continued digging for more survivors.
Iran fired missiles at American allies in the Gulf this week after a US air strike hit a wedding party in southern Iran, the heaviest exchange between Washington and Tehran in months. US forces struck Iranian Revolutionary Guard targets, including air defense sites and radar, starting Tuesday. One strike hit a home in Kuhestak where families were celebrating a wedding; the Iranian Red Crescent said four people, including a child, were killed and more than 50 wounded. Iran said it targeted at least seven bases used by US forces across the Middle East and fired missiles at American bases in Jordan that were intercepted. The fighting comes six months into the Iran war, with the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane again at the center of the conflict.