Evening Update: Guilfoyle resigns as Greece ambassador; Trump warns Houthis after Saudi strikes; UK ties Iran to RAF Fairford plot
Also: Zelenskyy says Ukraine held its energy fire for two days while Russia kept striking; SpaceX CRS-35 is en route to the station; and Salazar v. Paramount is set for Wednesday.
5 PM CT video brief · 1:52Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your Evening Update for Tuesday, October 13. Guilfoyle resigns as Greece ambassador after White House ask. Trump warns Houthis; Riyadh airport shut; Aramco fire reported. MI5: Iran plot against RAF Fairford is not unique. Zelenskyy: Ukraine held energy fire two days; Russia did not heed. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Unsettled weather moves into the West with rain, mixed precipitation, and mountain snow. Widely scattered severe storms capable of large hail, severe gusts, and possibly a tornado are expected over portions of the central and southern Plains into the Lower Missouri Valley this afternoon into tonight. More isolated severe weather may occur from southwest Texas into the mid Mississippi Valley, and in parts of New York, a level 2 of 5 severe storm risk. Our opinion. Accountability at State; strength on Iran's proxies; pressure on Moscow. That's your Evening Update. I'm Nora Vale. See you in the morning.
President Trump told reporters Tuesday the Iran-backed Houthis have "acted very badly," and on Truth Social he warned they had "emerged again, probably at the behest of Iran," after deadly weekend strikes on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport. Fox News Digital reported the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted drones and missiles aimed at Riyadh and southern Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, and that Reuters-cited sources said a ballistic missile strike sparked a fire and damaged an office tower at a Saudi Aramco complex in Dhahran. The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia issued a fresh alert urging Americans to exercise extreme caution around airports and, in a related State Department message, to reconsider travel to the kingdom. King Khalid International Airport remains closed after attacks that killed civilians, including an American.
Ken McCallum, director general of Britain's MI5, said Tuesday that Iran has been trying to hit military sites in the United Kingdom and that a suspected September terror plot against RAF Fairford — a base used by U.S. heavy bombers, including during Operation Epic Fury — is "not unique," Fox News Digital reported. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday the plot was "highly likely" coordinated in Iran and "almost certainly" directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The United States, Britain and other allies condemned Iran in a joint statement; Iran's ambassador to Britain denied involvement after being summoned to the Foreign Office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukraine has not struck Russian oil refineries or the energy sector for two days since President Trump announced an energy ceasefire, but that "Russia did not heed," according to his statement reported by the Kyiv Independent. Zelenskyy also said Tuesday Ukraine "received no early warning from our partners" on a recent Russian ballistic-missile strike against Kyiv, calling early warning "one of the most critical issues" for saving lives, the Washington Examiner reported. Separately, Trump defended a U.S.-brokered diesel release deal with Russia, saying it was for the world market after high prices; a bipartisan group of senators called the pact a "betrayal" of Ukraine and urged him to scrap it, Fox News Digital reported.
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said in her first briefing Tuesday that the administration had asked U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign, calling her "a wonderful asset to the team." Guilfoyle then confirmed she is leaving, writing that the allegations against her are "false" and that she will "vigorously defend" her name, while thanking President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The move follows Wall Street Journal reporting that she pressed a Trump donor to clear about $100,000 in personal credit-card debt before her confirmation, and other alleged misconduct claims that the State Department inspector general has been examining. Trump later told reporters she "was doing a good job, but we didn't like what we were reading."
The White House said Tuesday that President Trump is traveling to Alaska to highlight what it calls results for the state: Working Families Tax Cuts including no tax on tips and a senior deduction, reopening large parts of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing, and major military construction at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base. The release also cites Defense Production Act funding for a power line it says will lower energy costs for most Alaskans, and a South Korean investment package that includes funding for a new Alaska natural gas pipeline. Trump is in the final weeks of a midterm campaign travel blitz.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court hears oral argument in Salazar v. Paramount Global (No. 25-459), with one hour allotted, according to the Court's day call. The case asks whether the Video Privacy Protection Act's definition of "consumer" covers subscribers to any goods or services from a video provider, or only audiovisual ones, SCOTUSblog reported. Michael Salazar sued after subscribing to an email newsletter from Paramount-owned 247Sports.com and alleged the site shared his video-viewing data with Facebook via a tracking pixel. The Sixth Circuit held he was not a VPPA "consumer" because the newsletter was not audiovisual content.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 lifted off at 5:33 a.m. CT Tuesday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, lofting Cargo Dragon on NASA's CRS-35 resupply flight with more than 6,300 pounds of science, supplies and hardware, including the final pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays, SpaceX and NASA said. Booster B1096 landed on Landing Zone 40 about eight minutes later. Dragon is due to dock with the International Space Station about 11:00 a.m. ET Thursday, Oct. 15. Another step toward Mars: flying a reused Falcon 9 and Cargo Dragon on a routine NASA cargo run is the reusable cadence SpaceX is building toward Starship flights that will eventually carry people to Mars.
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