Morning Brief: Houthis hit Aden palace; Ukraine Starlink restored; Trump rules out nuclear strike on Iran
Five killed at Yemen's presidential palace; Starshield service back after a White House-linked slowdown; Treasury hits Iran shadow banks and a Cuban lender.
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I'm Nora Vale with your Morning Brief World Brief for Friday, October 16. Houthi missiles hit Aden palace; 5 dead. Coalition: 20 attacks on Riyadh airport this month. Ukraine Starlink/Starshield restored after slowdown; Hegseth assures UK. Trump rules out nuclear weapons and ground troops in Iran. Treasury hits Iran shadow banks; State designates Cuban BICSA. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Severe Thunderstorm risk for Friday across parts of the Mid-Atlantic into Southern New England. Thunderstorms with wind-damage and localized brief-tornado potential are expected across parts of the Mid-Atlantic into southern New England, mainly this afternoon and early evening, a level 2 of 5 severe storm risk. Our opinion. Pressure Houthis for real; explain any Starlink throttle; cut Iran's dollar pipes. Full stories and sources are at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale. Thanks for watching.
Iran-backed Houthi forces struck al-Maashiq Palace in Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognized government, with ballistic missiles on Thursday, killing five people and wounding 16, Yemen's health minister and Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani told outlets including the BBC and Anadolu. Casualties were guards and civilian employees; Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani and other ministers inside the complex were unhurt. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the group hit what it called a "Saudi military operations headquarters" in Aden; Saudi-led coalition reporting the same day said Houthis had also carried out repeated attacks on Saudi airports this month, including 20 strikes aimed at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh that killed 17 and wounded 333.
A Ukrainian Defense Ministry source told the Kyiv Independent that Starshield service while on the move had been restored and remained operational after SpaceX imposed unexpected speed limits of about 100 mph (160 km/h) on Oct. 14 that disrupted mid-range strike and interceptor drone missions. UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured him in a face-to-face meeting that Starlink access for Ukraine was back up; the Guardian reported Reuters citing officials who said the order to slow the military-grade service came from inside the White House, without naming who issued it. A Ukrainian official separately told Axios the services had been restored to full capacity and that Ukraine conducted an overnight strike on a Russian oil refinery, while Russia's Ryazan regional governor reported a fire at a refinery after a major Ukrainian drone attack Thursday morning.
In a Thursday Newsmax interview from the White House, President Donald Trump said he would not use nuclear weapons against Iran — "I wouldn't use nuclear. We don't have to" — and said he did not foresee putting U.S. ground troops into Iran. Asked about reports that the Pentagon had prepared strike options including the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, Trump stressed the weapon "is not nuclear" and is "just an extremely large bomb," without saying he had authorized its use. He also said the United States was looking at striking Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected Iranian nuclear site, and predicted the Iran war would end "very soon" one way or the other as negotiations continue; Fox News and CNBC reported the same remarks alongside Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's warning that "bombs and missiles" would not force Tehran to surrender.
The Treasury Department on Thursday announced new Operation Economic Outcast designations targeting Iran's international financial networks, including Iraq-based International Development Bank for Investment and Finance for providing U.S. dollar access to Iran, Iranian "offshore" banks, oil intermediary Sayyed Ruhollah Razavi, and a web of exchange houses and front companies. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said "the noose is tightening around Iran's economy" and that Treasury "will not relent until the Iranian regime's coffers are empty." In coordination, the State Department designated Cuba's state-owned Banco Internacional de Comercio S.A. (BICSA) under E.O. 14404 for operating in Cuba's financial services sector; Treasury said BICSA has provided services to designated Iran-based Karafarin Bank since at least 2022.
The Supreme Court's public docket showed no new overnight action Friday morning on the emergency application from Baltimore, New Haven, Columbus and an immigrant legal-services group asking justices to pause a Texas-DOJ consent judgment that voided a 2024 Biden-era "administrative closure" rule letting immigration judges suspend some deportation cases. After Texas sued in Judge Reed O'Connor's court, DOJ agreed the rule should be set aside; O'Connor entered a final consent judgment tossing the rule, denied the cities' intervention for lack of standing, and the Fifth Circuit refused interim relief, SCOTUSblog and the Washington Examiner reported Thursday. The Court's home page still highlighted this week's argued cases (Beaird v. United States on Oct. 13 and Salazar v. Paramount Global on Oct. 14) and the stay of a Fourth Circuit order rushing an FCC political-ad-rate decision; no Friday argument session was listed.
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