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1 of 3 | An RAF Typhoon joins a U.S.-led coalition to conduct air strikes against military targets in Yemen this past year. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the Yemen-based Houthis have “capitulated” and will stop attacking commercial and military shipping. Those attacks by the Houthis are what prompted the recent Western military air strikes against them. File Photo via U.K. Ministry of Defense/UPI | License Photo

May 6 (UPI) — The Yemen-based Houthis have “capitulated” and stopped attacking commercial and military shipping, President Donald Trump announced after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday.

“They’ve announced to us at least that they don’t want to fight anymore,” Trump told media.

“They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that,” Trump said. “They have capitulated. But, more importantly, they … say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”

Trump said Houthi representatives approached his administration Monday night seeking a halt to nearly two months of continuous airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, Politico reported.

U.S Central Command has said military strikes have hit at least 800 targets and killed hundreds of Houthis after the aerial campaign against the organization that controls significant parts of Yemen.

The strikes began on March 15 and were intended to stop the Houthis from continuing to attack commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Houthi strikes caused many commercial shipping outfits to stop using the Suez Canal and instead sail around the southern end of Africa to avoid waters near Yemen.

Trump said an informal agreement has ended the hostilities between the U.S. military and the Houthis.

It’s unclear if the Houthis agreed to stop attacking all shipping or only U.S.-flagged vessels.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff helped to negotiate the cease-fire over the weekend, with Oman officials acting as a mediator, Politico reported.

“Efforts have resulted in a cease-fire agreement between the two sides,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said Tuesday in a post on X.

“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” he said.

The Houthis will continue their strikes against Israel, though.

Houthi senior official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said the Houthis “will definitely continue our operations in support of Gaza” until hostilities end there, Bloomberg News reported.

May 6 (UPI) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has a permissive approach to Tren de Aragua activities there but does not control them in the United States, a federal report concluded last month.

“The Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the National Intelligence Council said in a memorandum dated April 8.

The report says TDA was formed in 2007 in Venezuela’s Tocoron Prison in Venezuela’s Aragua State and has several people who act as its core leaders.

Recent setbacks have weakened the gang, including being removed from the Tocoron Prison in 2023, but it has several political leaders and military members who support its activities in Venezuela.

Maduro is not among the supportive political leaders, according to the report, but he does tolerate some TDA activities.

The regime also knows that fighting TDA and other armed groups “often results in personnel losses,” which further contributes to cooperating with them at times.

The inability to maintain control throughout the country gives the Maduro regime an interest in cooperating with armed groups in relatively lawless areas.

The report also says Venezuela’s security services are incapable of fully controlling the nation’s territories.

“The Maduro regime generally does not impede illegal armed and criminal groups from operating in Venezuela,” the report says, “but it does combat and seek to contain them when it fears they could destabilize the regime or when corrupt deals sour.”

The report acknowledges increased TDA activity from 2021 to 2024 while President Joe Biden was in office.

“There was a spike in Venezuelan encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in which some TDA members could have been present as they have generally moved with Venezuelan migrant communities and profit from human trafficking and migrant smuggling,” the report says.

The gang’s small size, its focus on low-skill criminal activities and its decentralized structure make it “highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling,” according to the report.

President Donald Trump in March declared TDA a “terrorist organization” and accused Maduro of “perpetrating an invasion and predatory incursion into the United States,” the Miami Herald reported.

He said TDA operates in conjunction with Cartel de los Soles, which Trump called a “Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorist enterprise.”

May 6 (UPI) — India’s military launched missile strikes against what it called “terrorist targets” in Pakistan early Tuesday morning following the recent deadly attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir.

The Indian military launched Operation Sindoor by striking nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered areas in Jammu and Kashmir, ABC News, the Times of India and Al Jazeera reported.

Pakistani officials in Islamabad acknowledged the missile strikes and said there will be a response.

Pakistani Army officials said the missile attacks targeted Bahawalpur, Muzaffaabad and Kotli in eastern Pakistan and killed three people and injured 12 others.

The Indian Army declared “justice is served” after the missile strikes and blamed Pakistan for the deadly April 22 attack that killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, which is known as the “Switzerland of India” due to its proximity to the Himalayan Mountains.

Several gunmen emerged from a wooded area and fired on a group of tourists before disappearing back into the wooded area.

The attack occurred in a remote valley that is accessible only by horse or on foot.

President Donald Trump called the missile attack a “shame” when asked for comment on Tuesday.

“Just heard about it,” Trump told reporters. “I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They’ve been fighting for a long time.”

Trump said he hopes for a quick end to the hostilities between India and Pakistan, ABC News reported.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a statement in which she said, “I implore the two governments to exercise restraint and prioritize diplomatic engagement. The world can ill afford instability in South Asia.”

A State Department official said they are aware of the reports but have no assessment to offer at the time.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been among U.S. officials who are working to minimize any retaliation by India after the terrorist attack.

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Israeli Prime Minister says Palestinians in Gaza will be relocated to the south during a ‘new phase’ of intense military operation, with reports suggesting that Israel is considering occupying the entire enclave and taking control of aid distribution.

May 6 (UPI) — Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins on Tuesday accused Democrats of fearmongering while they oppose proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs workforce.

Reports have suggested Collins wants to eliminate more than 80,000 VA jobs, but he told the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs that number is a goal and not a hard target.

Collins told the committee he wants to reduce the VA’s workforce by 15%, which would mean firing more than 80,000 workers, but that goal has not become a reality.

Democrats have suggested such a workforce reduction would harm services for veterans, but Collins said no one is looking to fire doctors or nurses who work for the VA, the New York Times reported.

The VA so far has fired 2,400 workers and intends to end 585 contracts, NBC News reported.

Collins told committee members he would like to eliminate another 70,500 non-essential positions within the department to make it more efficient.

“The department’s history shows that adding more employees to the systems doesn’t automatically equal better results,” he said.

The agency would keep its health care workers but fire interior designers and staff whose jobs involve administering diversity, equity and inclusion policies that President Donald Trump eliminated via an executive order.

The quality of VA-provided health care and benefits would not harm veterans and other beneficiaries, Collins told the committee.

He said reducing the size of the VA’s workforce would increase the agency’s productivity and get rid of waste.

For example, removing DEI initiatives would save the VA an estimated $14 million, Collins said.

The VA has about 470,000 employees who provide services for 9.1 million people.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., accused the VA of “totally lacking” accountability and said the proposed workforce reduction could be a disaster for the people it serves.

“It is a disaster that is on the horizon, approaching us as surely as a thunderstorm in the nation’s capital,” Blumenthal said.

Friedrich Merz receives 325 votes in the second round of voting, hours after a shock defeat in the first ballot.

Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has been elected Germany’s chancellor in a second round of parliamentary voting after his new alliance with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) was dealt a surprise defeat in the first attempt.

Merz’s failure to win parliamentary backing in the first round of voting was a first for post-war Germany.

Merz received 325 votes in the second round of voting on Tuesday.

He needed a majority of 316 out of 630 votes in a secret ballot, but only received 310 votes in the first round, well short of the 328 seats held by his coalition.

After the vote, the 69-year-old headed to the nearby Bellevue Palace to be formally nominated by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Later, Merz will return to the historic Reichstag building in the heart of Berlin to take the oath of office to become Germany’s 10th chancellor since the end of World War II.

The Merz-led conservative alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) had topped in the national elections in February with 28.5 percent of the vote, but it still required at least one coalition partner to form a majority government.

On Monday, the CDU/CSU reached an agreement with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) , which secured 16.4 percent in the elections after the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s government last year.

Their agreement has mapped out plans to revive growth, such as reducing corporate taxes and lowering energy prices. It is also promising strong support for Ukraine as it battles to repel Russia’s invasion, and higher military spending.

The new chancellor’s in-tray would also include the confrontational trade policy of US President Donald Trump and domestic issues such as the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Coalition ‘not united’

Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said Merz’s failure to win in the first round of voting suggests that “all is not well in those three … now governing parties”.

“He [Merz] starts in this new position, knowing that members of his own coalition voted against him,” he said.

Experts say Merz’s failure to win backing for his chancellorship at the first attempt is an embarrassment for a figure who has promised to restore German leadership on the world stage.

“The whole of Europe looked to Berlin today in the hope that Germany would reassert itself as an anchor of stability and a pro-European powerhouse,” said Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “That hope has been dashed. With consequences way beyond our borders.”

Party insiders said on Monday that Merz would swiftly secure a majority despite grumbling in both coalition parties about cabinet nominations, policy compromises and a huge borrowing package pushed through the old parliament in its final days.

“This shows that the coalition is not united, which could weaken his ability to pursue policies,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London.

The abrasive and erratic style of Merz, who has never held government office, has also failed to convince some that he is chancellor material.

“The relationship between the parties will be severely damaged because of this and [it will] exacerbate the conflicts that are already bubbling beneath the surface,” said Philipp Koeker, a political scientist at the University of Hanover.