Diesel breaks $6

The national average hit a record $6.05 a gallon, up more than 60% from $3.71 a year ago, according to AAA. Trucking, rail, construction and farming all run on it, so the cost travels.

Mokha falls

Houthi fighters took the Red Sea port city of Mokha on Thursday, their biggest territorial gain in years. It sits about 50 miles from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and overlooks tanker routes out of the Red Sea.

A volcanic island, taken

On Friday they captured Mayun, also called Perim, a barren island two miles off Yemen's west coast that sits in the middle of the shipping lane. Officials on both sides of the war confirmed it.

The last two islands

Greater and Lesser Hanish went next, leaving nothing in the strait outside Houthi hands. A Yemeni government military official described the collapse in blunt terms.

“Everything that was under our control on the western coast has fallen.”

Why this strait matters

Bab el-Mandeb links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and Europe to Asia. It was the workaround while Iran choked Hormuz. Holding it lets the Houthis aim at Saudi oil tankers almost at will.

MBS works the phone

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called President Trump twice on Thursday, two sources told CBS News, first to warn about the collapse and then to ask for U.S. strikes on the Houthis.

Trump says no

The president declined to send the U.S. military in, offering intelligence and targeting support instead. More than 200 American personnel are already in Saudi Arabia doing what one official called non-kinetic support.

Riyadh answers with air power

Saudi Arabia has run dozens of retaliatory airstrikes, including two on Mokha's airport. Six missiles then hit the Mokha port itself, a local official said, without naming who fired them.

Six districts, they claim

Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said an operation launched Sept. 3 pushed Saudi-backed forces out of 2,000 square miles across Taiz and Hodeidah, hitting 38 brigades and freeing long-held prisoners.

Safe for everyone but one

A Houthi politburo member told Al-Araby al-Jadeed that shipping has nothing to fear. Saree carved out the exception: Saudi vessels are still banned.

“Freedom of navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb are safe and orderly.”

Rockets built with a chatbot

Anthropic said a cell in northern Yemen used Claude to write guidance software for a homing rocket and a missile aimed at 1,250-mile range. One test fire failed, and the users came back within hours to debug it.

Tehran wants the blockade lifted

Iran's foreign ministry called for an end to Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen and a return to talks, saying the country's problems cannot be solved by sieges or military alliances.

Yemen at the Security Council

U.N. envoy Hans Grundberg told an emergency session the fighting ends four years of relative calm since the U.N.-brokered truce. Yemen's ambassador asked the council to cut off arms and expertise to the Houthis.

“This renewed war should alarm us all.”

46,000 people on the move

Displacement has more than doubled in days, the IOM said, from about 18,500 on Tuesday. Villages west of Taiz have emptied and the Mokha-Taiz supply road is reportedly cut.

“Entire villages are reported to have emptied.”

Hormuz on the agenda in Oman

Iran will meet Iraq and other Gulf states in Muscat on Monday to talk about the strait it has blockaded. Ships now need Iranian permission, and a service fee scheme is under discussion.

A sea drone destroyed

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said its navy hit a U.S. Saildrone Explorer in the Strait of Hormuz, the solar and wind powered craft the Fifth Fleet uses for surveillance. A day earlier Tehran showed video of a captured underwater drone.

Markets exhale, briefly

Brent crude slipped back under $105 after touching nearly $110 overnight, and U.S. stocks clawed back most of the week's losses. Inflation still came in at 3.4% year over year.

Iran taunts the Treasury

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi mocked Scott Bessent over 30-year bond yields at their highest since 2004, days after the U.S. announced sanctions it called economic D-Day.

“Meltdown over cost of funding U.S. debt is only the beginning.”

New Delhi hedges

Modi met Putin and Iran's president separately before this weekend's BRICS summit. India stopped direct crude imports from Iran under U.S. sanctions but keeps the relationship alive anyway.

No clear victor

Washington has loosened Iran's grip on Hormuz and gutted its oil exports, but the war meant to last weeks is past six months with no exit plan and no talks since June's deal collapsed.

“Iran shows no sign of backing down, and instead has demonstrated a willingness to not only fight back, but escalate wherever it can.”