🇸🇦🇾🇪🇺🇸🇾🇪⚡️ — Axios, citing a U.S. official, reports that the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces has been planning a joint Saudi/PLC counteroffensive involving PLC ground forces and Royal Saudi Air Force airstrikes for weeks, and that the operation was approved by Saudi leadership several days ago.

Saudi Arabian Minister of Defense Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud briefed U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on the operation and requested U.S. air support, but the U.S. has decided against kinetic action. U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Central Command both reportedly oppose involvement in the Yemen war; Trump seeks to avoid U.S. involvement in a new war, and CENTCOM views a potential intervention in Yemen as a distraction from Iran.

The U.S. military has, however, provided KSA with intelligence on over 200 Ansarallah military targets. U.S. forces could also intervene if the offensive fails.

🇬🇧🇺🇸🇮🇱 Whistleblower who exposed Lutnick's Epstein ties has died - by "suicide"

Simon Andriesz, a 57-year-old former British banker who spent more than 35 years in financial markets, has died by suicide, The Banker reports.

Andriesz was a former managing director at BGC Group, where current US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was chief executive. He found 2018 emails in the Epstein files linking Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein through a startup investment and passed them to the US House Oversight Committee. The emails contradicted Lutnick's claim that he had cut contact with Epstein in 2005.

Lutnick denies any wrongdoing.

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