Category: English

SANAA – Yemen’s Houthi group said on Monday that it had launched fresh attacks at two Israeli targets and two U.S. aircraft carriers, using drones and cruise missiles.

“We launched a drone attack at a vital target in the city of Ashkelon and another drone attack at a military target in the city of Eilat,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in the statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

He didn’t identify the names of the targets in both cities in southern Israel.

“As part of confronting the American aggression … we targeted the aircraft carrier Truman and its escorting warships in the northern Red Sea, using two cruise missiles and two drones,” Sarea said, referring to the USS S. Harry Truman.

“We also targeted the aircraft carrier Vinson (the USS Carl Vinson) and its escorting warships in the Arabian Sea, using three cruise missiles and four drones,” he said.

Sarea reaffirmed that the group’s attacks “will continue” against Israel and the U.S. naval forces in the region.

According to the Houthi television, the attacks against Israel and the U.S. warships were carried out in the past 24 hours.

The Israeli defense forces have yet to comment on the Houthi claim, nor the U.S. military.

Meanwhile, the U.S. airstrikes in Yemen have been continuing. Early in the day, the Houthi television said the death toll from U.S. airstrikes on Sunday night against a popular market in the Shu’ub neighborhood in central Yemen’s capital Sanaa rose to 12, with 30 other “civilians” wounded.

Also on Sunday night, the Houthi television reported other U.S. airstrikes on several Houthi locations in the northern provinces of Al-Mahwit, Saada, and Marib.

Tensions between the Houthi group and the U.S. military have escalated since Washington resumed airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on March 15 to deter the group from targeting Israel and U.S. warships.

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JERUSALEM – Israel’s military said on Monday that it carried out more than 200 airstrikes across the Gaza Strip over the past three days, killing a member of the Islamic Jihad movement.

The military said the strikes targeted militant infrastructure, militant cells, rocket launch and sniper positions, weapons depots and command centers.

It identified the killed fighter as Ahmad Mansour, who it said participated in the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and later directed rocket fire during the ongoing war.

In Rafah’s Shabura and Tel al-Sultan neighborhoods, Israeli troops dismantled “terrorist infrastructure” and uncovered a cache of grenades, ammunition and other military gear.

Along the recently constructed Morag Corridor, which bisects Rafah from Khan Younis and the rest of Gaza, troops located weapons, destroyed Hamas infrastructure and killed several militants, the military said.

In northern Gaza, soldiers launched an airstrike on a building containing what was described as underground infrastructure and detected multiple militants. The army also reported dismantling Hamas sniper posts that had threatened its ground forces.

At least eight people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday and dozens wounded, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

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ROME – Pope Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, died Monday at the age of 88, said the Vatican in a statement.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Francis was head of the Roman Catholic Church since 2013.

His death came weeks after returning home from a 38-day stay in intensive care, and followed an intense Holy Week schedule that included public appearances.

After a period of mourning, the Vatican will turn toward preparations for a gathering of the College of Cardinals to select Francis’ successor.

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Three people died and a fourth was critically injured early Easter Sunday when a fire tore through an overcrowded home in Queens, that had no evidence of a working smoke detector and had blocked stairs and exits, fire officials said.

Makeshift walls had been erected in the Jamaica Estates home, including through the middle of the kitchen, New York Fire Department Chief John Esposito said at a news conference.

Officials also said extension cords were found throughout the two story home. The cords can overheat, especially when overloaded or improperly used, leading to fires, according to Electrical Safety Foundation International. The fire department is still determining the fire’s origin.

Firefighters arrived in less than four minutes, but the blaze in the early morning hours spread quickly to the upper floors of the house. There were reports of people jumping out of the attic window, Esposito said.

People lived on both floors of the house, as well as its cellar and attic, Esposito said.

“We are not encouraging, we’re begging all New Yorkers to have a working smoke alarm in their home, and, you know, if possible a CO2 detector as well,” New York City Fire Commissioner Robert S. Tucker said during a Sunday press conference.

About 10 to 15 people reside in the home, including its landlord, second floor resident Adham Ammar told ABC7 Eyewitness News. Ammar was not in the home when the fire happened, he said.

“Part of this, it’s because of the negligence of the landlord,” he said. Attempts by the AP to reach the landlord were unsuccessful.

Three firefighters suffered minor injuries.

AP

Russia launched missiles and drones targeting Ukraine early on Monday, waking up Kyiv and the eastern half of the country, hours after the one-day Easter ceasefire declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin came to an end.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damages from the attacks, regional Ukrainian officials said on social media. The scale of the attack was not immediately clear.

Both Kyiv and Moscow had accused each other of thousands of attacks that violated the truce that the Kremlin indicated on Sunday would not be extended.

Washington said it would welcome an extension of the truce, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reiterated several times Ukraine’s willingness to pause strikes for 30 days in the war.

But Putin, who launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and who ordered on Saturday the halt in all military activity along the front line until midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT) on Sunday, did not give orders to extend it.

“There were no other commands,” Russia’s TASS state news agency cited Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying when asked whether the ceasefire could be prolonged.

While eastern Ukraine was placed under air raid alerts starting minutes after midnight on Monday that are yet to be called off, according to data from the Ukrainian air force, Kyiv and the central regions were placed on alert for about an hour, starting at 0140 GMT.

There were no reports of strikes on the Ukrainian capital, but officials in the port city of Mykolaiv said that it had been hit by Russian missiles. There were no immediate reports of damages.

Russia’s Voronezh region that borders Ukraine was also under air raid alerts for two hours overnight, and the borders regions of Kursk and parts of Belgorod were briefly under missile threat as well, regional officials said.

While there were no air raid alerts in Ukraine on Sunday, Ukrainian forces reported nearly 3,000 violations of Russia’s own ceasefire with the heaviest attacks and shelling seen along the Pokrovsk part of the frontline, Zelenskiy said earlier on Monday.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions 444 times and said it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks, saying also that there were deaths and injuries among the civilian population.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.

U.S. President Donald Trump, hoping to clinch a lasting peace deal, struck an optimistic note Sunday, saying that “hopefully” the two sides would make a deal “this week” to end the conflict.

On Friday, Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said the U.S. would walk away from peace efforts unless there are clear signs of progress soon.

REUTERS

SEOUL – One person was killed and 11 others injured on Monday morning in what was alleged to be an apartment arson in South Korea’s capital Seoul, Yonhap news agency said, citing the fire authorities.

The fire broke out at about 8:17 a.m. local time (2317 GMT Sunday) in a 21-story apartment building. The flame was extinguished one and a half hours later.

One person was found dead, and two people were taken to a hospital after falling from the apartment. Nine others suffered minor injuries such as smoke inhalation and difficulty with breathing.

Police suspect a man started the fire on purpose, and are tracking down the suspected arsonist, according to Yonhap.

XINHUA

MOSCOW – Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine had broken the Easter ceasefire declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin more than a thousand times, inflicting damages to infrastructure and causing civilian deaths.

The ministry said that Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions 444 times while it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks.

It said the border districts of the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions have been attacked.

“As a result, there were deaths and injuries among the civilian population, as well as damage to civilian objects,” it said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.

The defence ministry also said that the Russian military had gained control of Novomikhailivka in eastern Ukraine before the declaration of ceasefire.

REUTERS

GAZA – Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children.

Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.

“Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency told AFP.

In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.

“We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,” Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.

AN-AFP

MANILA – A passenger jeepney lost its brakes and plunged into a roadside canal in Marinduque province in the Philippines, killing six and injuring 20 others, police said Sunday.

Police said the jeepney, carrying 26 holidaymakers, was heading to a river for a family outing when the crash happened past 10 a.m. local time Saturday.

Initial investigation showed the speeding jeepney was on a descending road when its brakes malfunctioned. It then plowed into cement culverts and hit a tree before falling into a canal, tossing some passengers onto the ground.

The crash’s impact shaved the vehicle’s roof and wrecked the car’s hood.

Jeepneys are the primary mode of transport for millions of Filipinos across the archipelago, especially in the countryside.

XINHUA

NEW DELHI – At least three persons, including two children, died in flash floods and landslides that hit the Ramban area of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir region, officials said on Sunday.

Many houses and other properties were either washed away or greatly damaged in the natural calamity.

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