Israel says missile launched by Yemen's Houthis was intercepted
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones the Houthis have launched at Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
The Iran-aligned Houthis have been firing at Israel and attacking shipping lanes. Traffic through the Red Sea, a critical waterway for the world's oil and commodities, has dropped since the militia began targeting ships in November 2023 in what the group said was solidarity with Palestinians against Israel in the Gaza war.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a U.S.-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the 21-month war that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave.
Earlier on Friday, Hamas said that while the group favours reaching an interim truce, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of obstructing progress towards a deal. REUTERS
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The Justice Department said in a memo earlier this month that there was no basis to continue probing the Epstein case, sparking anger among some prominent Trump supporters who demanded more information about wealthy and powerful people who had interacted with Epstein. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein and has said their friendship ended before Epstein's legal troubles first began two decades ago. Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a statement that did not directly address the Journal's report. "Nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution, and we have filed a motion in court to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts," the officials said. "As part of our routine briefing, we made the President aware of the findings." MANY NAMES APPEARED The newspaper reported that Bondi and her deputy told Trump at a White House meeting that his name, as well as those of "many other high-profile figures," appeared in the files. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, to which he had pleaded not guilty. In a separate case, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a prostitution charge in Florida and received a 13-month sentence in what is now widely regarded as too lenient a deal with prosecutors. Under political pressure last week, Trump directed the Justice Department to seek the release of sealed grand jury transcripts related to Epstein. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied one of those requests, finding that it did not fall into any of the exceptions to rules requiring grand jury material be kept secret. That motion stemmed from federal investigations into Epstein in 2005 and 2007, according to court documents; the department has also requested the unsealing of transcripts in Manhattan federal court related to later indictments brought against Epstein and Maxwell. 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More than two-thirds of Americans believe the Trump administration is hiding information about Epstein's clients, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week. REUTERS
