Iran Tells Houthis To Close Red Sea Energy Chokepoint If Trump Bombs Power Grid

Yemen's Houthis have long warned of their ability to close the Red Sea oil route, but have by and large stayed on the sidelines of the expanding Gulf regional conflict which is focused on Iran since Operation Epic Fury began.

Things began changing dramatically this month, however, after Saudi warplane incursions into Yemen - which bombed Sanaa International Airport on July 13 - in an effort to prevent an Iranian commercial jet from landing there.

via Marine Insight

The Houthis responded by sending missile and drones on Saudi Arabian airbases and infrastructure, opening up the possibility of renewed Saudi-Houthi war (hearkening back to the more intense war of the prior decade).

Houthi rhetoric is growing, related to the US-Israel war on Iran:

The leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement has denounced US and Israeli collaboration as the source of the problems in the Middle East.

In a televised address, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi also blamed Saudi leaders for advancing US and Israeli objectives in the region. “The United States and Israel are the source of evil and instability in the world,” al-Houthi said.

In a rare moment of the now long-running conflict, on Thursday reports have emerged that Tehran is actively requesting that the Houthis join the war in the scenario that Washington begins attacking Iran's power infrastructure.

This is after President Trump told Fox News on Tuesday evening that "Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants."

"Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate," he warned.

But according to Reuters, Iran still has another escalatory card of its own to play:

Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthi rebels to stand ready to close the Red Sea oil route if the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, three sources told Reuters on Thursday, posing a potent new threat to global energy supplies.

The idea has been discussed within the Islamic Republic’s leadership, and the message has been conveyed to Iran’s Houthi allies, two senior Iranian sources and a regional source familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The sources said the Houthis had been informed recently of Tehran’s request, which has not been previously reported.

It's long been reported that the Houthis have indeed been making preparations to attack shipping by deploying missiles and drones near Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is the crucial entry point to the Red Sea.

The Telegraph, citing sources in Yemen, reports that the Houthis are preparing contingency plans to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in coordination with Iran if Tehran decides to escalate the conflict further.

According to the report, the Houthis are expanding ties with Somalia's… pic.twitter.com/2ugHuY5Wde

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 16, 2026

This could obviously greatly exacerbate the global energy crisis - and would likely set off a new round of regional escalation - which might also see Houthi missiles once again targeting southern Israel, but also Saudi Arabia and the GCC allies.

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Iran Tells Houthis To Close Red Sea Energy Chokepoint If Trump Bombs Power Grid

NYC Council Grapples With Debate Over Bill To Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages

Authored by Nicholas Zifcak via The Epoch Times,

The family of Romanch Mahajan delivered emotional testimony over video link and in person on July 15, during a New York City Council hearing about a law that would phase out carriage horse rides in Central Park.

Tearful aunts and uncles of the deceased 18-year-old urged city council to outlaw the horse-drawn carriage rides and spare other families the grief they are still struggling to cope with.

The law, renamed in honor of the teen from India who died on June 17, would stop the city from issuing new licenses and over two years phase out the horse-drawn carriage rides through Central Park by June 1, 2028.

Majahan was thrown from a carriage after the horse spooked and bolted during a ride with his family on June 17 during their visit to New York. At the time the carriage driver had stepped down to take a photo of the Mahajan family in the carriage. City law requires carriage drivers to hold the reins of horses at all times.

Testimony from the family was followed by city officials, animal rights activists, and the union representing carriage drivers, TWU Local 100.

On Tuesday, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced her support for the bill in a video on X, calling the teen’s death “heartbreaking and infuriating,” and preventable. She said it’s time “to begin the transition away from horse-drawn carriages. “

Multiple past attempts to end the horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park have failed. The previous bill, Ryder’s law, introduced in 2022, was blocked by then-Speaker Adrienne Adams, according to former council member Bob Holden, who introduced the bill and attended Wednesday’s hearing to testify.

City Council members focused on how to help the 208 drivers navigate a career change and how to make sure horses are not sold for meat or end up pulling a carriage somewhere else.

Dr. Gabriel Cook, a veterinarian who was hired by carriage owners to look after the health of their horses, said the bill would be a death sentence for the horses. He said many horse retirement sanctuary facilities struggle financially and are not necessarily a better environment for the horses than their current stables.

Council Member James Gennaro of Queens berated city officials for lax enforcement of city law, demanding to know how many carriage medallions were revoked or suspended for violations in recent years.

“What have you done to enforce?” asked Gennaro when questioning Carlos Ortiz, the deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Ortiz said there have been suspensions but could not provide exact numbers.

Gennaro favors reforming the industry and introduced a bill on June 11 that would require the city to study ways to improve safety for horses by such improvements as allowing pitching posts in the park to tie horses up and allowing them to start working at 7 a.m., when temperatures are cooler.

Ashley Byrne of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), echoed Gennaro’s argument of “little to no enforcement from the city,” leading to the injury and death of a long list of horses over the past several decades.

Gennaro challenged Byrne in a heated exchange about what PETA has done for horses after the death in June of carriage horse Deniz, which TWU Local 100 has said died from eating poisonous Japanese yew that the Central Park Conservancy had planted within reach of the carriage route. Gennaro said he organized a campaign and reached out to the Conservancy.

“What have I done about a plant?” Byrne shot back at Gennaro as the audience jeered the council member. But Gennaro’s allotted time was up.

Speaking on the topic on July 14, Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed concern that adequate assistance be provided to carriage drivers, who would be put out of work.

“We support the spirit of the bill,” Mamdani told reporters, speaking at an unrelated press conference on July 14 in Inwood, Manhattan.

He suggested that the council do more to make sure drivers and stable hands employed in the industry find new employment.

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NYC Council Grapples With Debate Over Bill To Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages

US Utilities Requested $9.2BN In Rate Hikes In Q2, Up 26% From Previous Year

By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive

Electric and gas utilities in the second quarter asked state regulators to approve $9.2 billion in rate hikes, up 26% from the $7.3 billion in rate increase proposals filed in the same period last year, according to an updated report released Tuesday by the advocacy group PowerLines.

In the first half this year, utilities asked for $18.6 billion in rate hikes, down from about $25 billion in the same period last year, according to data collected by the nonprofit.

The report comes as average U.S. residential electric rates increased 7.3% from the year before to 18.8 cents/kWh in April, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As a result, “regulators face mounting pressure to scrutinize utility spending plans while balancing the infrastructure investments that a modernizing grid genuinely requires,” PowerLines said.

The utility sector appears to be entering a capital investment “super-cycle” amid growing affordability concerns. Backlash to rising bills has prompted protests by consumers and their advocates, as well as new state laws intended to tackle the issue.

The Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for investor-owned utilities, estimates that IOUs will spend about $1.4 trillion from this year through 2030 on capital investments. EEI expects capital expenditures will jump 17% this year to nearly $239 billion, from about $204 billion in 2025.

Some utilities contend they can make the investments without significantly affecting their rates. FirstEnergy, for example, is proposing to increase its electric rates in Ohio over three years by about $392 million — partly to cover roughly $2.5 billion in planned capital expenditures. The company says this will increase average annual residential customer bills by less than 3% a year.

According to PowerLines and public filings, other rate hike proposals utilities filed in the second quarter include:

• Dominion Energy in Virginia is seeking about $1.5 billion across three rate requests;
• Oncor in Texas requested the largest single increase in the second quarter, at $1.2 billion, driven largely by transmission and distribution investments to meet demand from the oil and gas industry and data centers in the Permian Basin;
• We Energies in Wisconsin is seeking about $606 million in rate increases;
• DTE Energy in Michigan is seeking an increase of $474 million; and,
• Consumers Energy in Michigan is asking for a rate hike of $456 million.

The proposed rate increases in the Midwest total about $193 per customer, followed by $172 per customer in the South, $135 per customer in the Northeast and $110 per customer in the West, according to the data from PowerLines.

Utility regulators will scrutinize the rate hike proposals in the coming months.

“These requests, while often approved at a lower cost than utilities propose, have a high chance of reaching consumer bills in some form,” PowerLines said.

State regulators approved 58% of the total costs utilities sought to add to their rates from 2023 through 2024, the organization said.

U.S. residential customers paid 18.8 cents/kWh on average in April, up 7.3% from the year before, according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration.

Those costs ranged from 12.4 cents/kWh in North Dakota to 46.6 cents/kWh in Hawai’i. The other highest cost states for residential customers were California at 35.3 cents/kWk, Connecticut at 32.2 cents/kWh and Massachusetts and New York at 29.5 cents/kWh.

Eversource Energy’s Connecticut Light and Power subsidiary is preparing to seek a $503 million rate increase, according to a May 20 filing at the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. If approved, it would increase residential rates by about 13%, the utility estimated.

CL&P said it would show PURA it has strategies to keep customer bills as stable and affordable as possible, while keeping the distribution system reliable.

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US Utilities Requested $9.2BN In Rate Hikes In Q2, Up 26% From Previous Year

US Gasoline Prices Could Top $4 Per Gallon Within Days

After several weeks of reprieve for drivers, the US national average price of gasoline could top $4 per gallon within a week, as crude oil prices rallied by about 12% in the three days since Friday amid the all-but-collapsed U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

The renewed hostilities in the Middle East have fueled a new crude oil price rally this week, while tight fuel markets globally are also pushing US prices at the pump higher, OilPrice notes.

“I've seen enough and believe the national average price of gasoline will again reach $4/gal in the next 7-10 days, if not sooner,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote late on Monday, when crude had surged by 9% on the day following the announcement of U.S. President Donald Trump that the U.S. blockade on Iran would be re-imposed on July 14.

GasBuddy’s key analyst expects price increases of $0.15-0.45 per gallon, depending on price cycling, in the next week or so.

Early this week, the average U.S. national price of gasoline rose for the first time since May, as the re-escalation of hostilities in the entire Middle Eastern region prompted an oil rally with prices hitting more than one-month highs.

As of the end of the day on July 14, the national average was $3.8590 per gallon, according to AAA data. That’s up from the $3.79 average from a week ago.

“The pain at the pump is about to intensify, and this time it's not one story driving it, it's two,” GasBuddy’s De Haan wrote earlier this week, noting the double gas price whammy of the re-escalation in the Middle East and Ukraine systematically knocking out Russian refining capacity.

“I now expect the national average price of gasoline to reach $4 per gallon in the next 7-10 days, if not sooner, while the U.S. average diesel price is likely to again reach $5 per gallon by the end of this week, potentially as soon as Friday,” De Haan said.

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US Gasoline Prices Could Top $4 Per Gallon Within Days

Rubio Pledges To Dismantle International Criminal Court's Threat To US Sovereignty

Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times,

The State Department is launching a campaign to “dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty,” the department said, including through disabling the court’s ability to target American servicemen or officials.

The State Department said in a July 13 statement that actions under consideration include U.S. officials contacting foreign nations to highlight the ICC’s abuses and the risk posed to other countries by the court, and urging them to withdraw from the body.

The Trump administration is also considering revoking visas and imposing travel bans on ICC personnel, imposing increased sanctions against the ICC and its affiliates, and increasing pressure on nations that refuse to reject ICC rulings while still relying on U.S. assistance.

“No diplomatic option will be off-limits in the campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to Americans,” the department said.

The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, asserting its jurisdiction if a member of the ICC is unable or unwilling to undertake prosecutions itself.

The United States has never been a member of the ICC; however, the court’s statutes give it the power to prosecute crimes committed in a member state by nationals of non-member states, including Americans.

“The ICC poses an intolerable threat to U.S. sovereignty - it claims the authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest,” the State Department said.

“Americans never signed up for this, and all American presidents since the ICC’s ratification have maintained that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Americans.”

The ICC’s spokesperson, Oriane Maillet, said the court would not comment on the matter at this stage.

President Donald Trump’s opposition to the court goes back to his first term in office. He and other officials in Washington have long said the ICC should not have the authority to investigate and prosecute U.S. citizens, particularly members of the military.

In March 2020, ICC prosecutors opened an ​investigation in Afghanistan that included looking into possible crimes by U.S. military personnel. However, since 2021, it has deprioritized the United States’ role, focusing ⁠on alleged crimes committed by Taliban forces and the Afghan government.

‘Waging a War Against Our Country’

“As we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes and compacts and the force of so-called international law,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a video message posted on July 13.

Rubio said that when the ICC was established, it said it was limited to dealing with the most serious of offenses.

“But the truth is, it was something far more radical and extreme. It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited,” he said.

Rubio said that the court’s power has only continued to grow, and that the United States should not stand idle and let judges living thousands of miles away make determinations well beyond their jurisdiction.

“The American people never agreed to any of this, and they never will,” Rubio said.

“Read the words of our Declaration of Independence. We fought a revolution against a foreign power, transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. Independence is our birthright. We will never let foreign bureaucrats take that away from us.”

In December 2025, Rubio sanctioned two ICC judges after accusing them of being engaged in the “illegitimate targeting” of Israel. Rubio said at the time that neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the ICC, and therefore rejected the court’s jurisdiction.

“The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which set a dangerous precedent for all nations. We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” Rubio said in the Dec. 18 statement.

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Rubio Pledges To Dismantle International Criminal Court's Threat To US Sovereignty