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Monday, September 14, 2026
4 Earthquake Clusters Strike Southern California at Once — Is the San Andreas About to Rupture?
Italian international airport shuts down after Mount Etna starts spewing volcanic ash
An airport in Sicily was forced to temporarily shut down again today after volcanic ash was spewed out of Mount Etna.
'Arrivals and departures at Catania Airport are suspended,' the airport said in a statement on its website.
All flights at the airport will be suspended until 10pm local time (9pm UK time) on Monday.
Catania Airport is Sicily's main gateway and Italy's fifth-busiest airport by passenger traffic. Airlines operating flights between Catania and the UK include British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air.
The recent eruption has prompted experts at the Etna Volcano Observatory to issue a red VONA (Volcano Observatory Notice to Aviation) alert for the ash cloud, which drifted towards the airport.
The airport, that usually services around 12 million passengers a year, was also closed for a week in August during the peak summer season.
Mount Etna is Europe's highest and most active volcano at 3,324 metres (nearly 11,000 feet), which has caused numerous disruptions to flights.
But ash emissions have been more frequent this summer, causing flight disruption to thousands of travellers and locals.
This has sparked growing calls in Italy for Catania airport to be closed and for other hubs in Sicily to be expanded because of the proximity to Etna, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.
SAC said 36 per cent of flights bound for Catania were cancelled between August 6 and August 12. More than 600 flights were diverted to nearby airports including Palermo, Trapani, Comiso and Lamezia Terme.
The eruption in August drew crowds of visitors to Mount Etna where spectacular lava flows could be observed close up.
But, as a result, Sicily's primary airport was forced to shut for five consecutive days - leaving thousands of tourists, including Brits, stranded.
It was the longest period the airport has had to close since 2002.
Catania Airport said on Monday: 'Due to Mount Etna's eruptive activity, the airspace corresponding to sectors C1 and B3 has been closed.
'Arrivals and departures at Catania Airport are suspended until 10pm local time.
'Passengers are kindly requested to check the status of their flight with their airline before travelling to the airport. Further updates will follow in the coming hours.'
Ukraine Pummels Black Sea Resort Near Putin's Villa With Air & Sea Drones
TYLER DURDEN
Ukraine sent some 400 drones across various parts of Russia and Crimea overnight, with UAV attacks having long been a nightly thing.
In this latest instance, the Black Sea resort city of Sochi suffered the most casualties, with five people - including a child - wounded in a drone attack. Several homes were also damaged in the assault.
The injuries in Sochi were due to "falling UAV debris" - local officials indicated Monday on Telegram. Sochi Mayor Andrei Proshunin later confirmed firefighters extinguished fires that resulted, with citizens being warned not to approach drone debris left from the attack.
Sochi has long been where President Putin has a sprawling vacation resort. He also used to frequently host foreign heads of state at the house.
The Telegraph reports that Putin's vacation residence may have been targeted in the overnight drone attack:
Ukraine launched strikes near Vladimir Putin’s seaside villa in the Black Sea resort of Sochi overnight, injuring five people. Footage posted online purported to show Ukrainian drones descending on the city, with large explosions and the thud of local air defence audible.
...Local Telegram channels reported strikes on an S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, many of which have come under fire in recent weeks after military intelligence found that the defensive systems were being repurposed to strike ground targets in Ukraine.
One channel claimed that drones had targeted Putin’s Bocharov Ruchey summer dacha, a coastal compound in a busy area of the city. The Russian president is believed to have largely stopped visiting the residence since it came within range of Kyiv’s drones.
The city mayor has ordered a temporary beach closure, also after last week sea drones unleashed even greater casualties and mayhem.
"Proshunin later announced the closure of Sochis beache’s due to the ongoing risk of drone strikes," Moscow Times writes.
Ukrainian sea drones — which Russia’s Defense Ministry calls “uncrewed boats” — struck the waterfront in Sochi on the evening of September 9. Twenty-eight people were injured, including two children, Krasnodar Krai’s operational headquarters reported. All those injured have received medical treatment; three adults and one child remain hospitalized.
The attack began around 9 p.m., just as singer Tatiana Bulanova was performing a concert at the Festivalny House of Culture on the waterfront. The concert was halted and the audience evacuated.
One local resident recounted what happened: “My wife was at the concert. During the evacuation, people were falling, running in panic. Explosions could be heard all around. She fell while running to the car. She was knocked down by the blast wave. You could really feel the shock wave after each explosion. They were very close.”
Ukraine has been seeking to impose a steep cost on the Russian population of late, hoping that it puts enough pressure on President Putin to come to the negotiating table while willing to compromise.
Netanyahu: We will continue destroying Hezbollah sites in Lebanon
Israel will keep destroying Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in a video statement.
“We have achieved another huge victory over Hezbollah,” he claims. “We destroyed its great terror stronghold on the Beaufort ridge and the Ali Taher ridge.”
“Our policy is clear — we will continue to destroy terror infrastructure in the security zone in Lebanon,” Netanyahu pledges. “We will continue to remove any threat to Israel.”
Turning to Israel’s foes, Netanyahu repeats his threat that, “If you haven’t learned the lesson by now, and you decide to attack us again, you will absorb even heavier blows. There is more work to complete, and with God’s help we will complete it.”
Fighting in Yemen intensifies, and Houthis launch more attacks on Saudi Arabia
The conflict in Yemen intensified on Sunday, as government forces launched attacks against Iran-backed Houthi rebels along the Red Sea and Houthis fired into neighboring Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen’s government.
The Yemeni government vowed to send more forces to the Red Sea coast and one official conceded a “painful” defeat last week when Houthis captured the port city of Mokha and an island on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
The escalation — especially Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure and its shipping in the Red Sea — adds pressure on global oil supplies and prices, and that could give Iran leverage in its war with the United States.
As Yemen risks descending into another civil war, the United Nations estimated that more than 80,000 people in the impoverished country have been displaced by the fighting since the start of September.
One woman said a mortar shell fell nearby as she fled in the middle of the night from the town of Khawkha in Hodeida province along the Red Sea, shortly before it was captured by Houthis.
“I saw with my own eyes cars and buses burning, and bodies of children and women were lying on the road in a horrific scene,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for her and her family’s safety.
Saudi authorities sounded sirens Sunday afternoon in the southern city of Abha and Khamis Mushait province, warning residents to take shelter from potential incoming fire. Both areas were repeatedly attacked by the Houthi in recent weeks.
The Houthis claimed to have used drones and missiles to target Saudi Arabia, including a military base just over the border with Yemen. Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree didn’t provide evidence or say when the attack occurred.
The Saudi civil defense overnight said a projectile fell in a different area near the border with Yemen along the Red Sea, injuring two people and damaging a mosque and several other buildings. The statement blamed the Houthis.
Saudi Arabia did not announce any new attacks targeting the Houthis.
The Houthis are targeting Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping as part of a recently declared blockade, but they have said they do not intend to threaten other countries’ commercial shipping.
The National Resistance, a government-allied force that had controlled coastal areas, said more than 500 government fighters were killed on the west coast over the past four weeks — its first comprehensive toll.
It also said more than 1,000 Houthis had been killed in Hodeida and Taiz provinces. A spokesman for the Houthis didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Yemen is home to over 40 million people who fear a return to the civil war that began more than a decade ago and killed 150,000, bringing many others to the brink of famine. Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Saudi Arabia have been battling the Houthis for 12 years. A ceasefire that began in 2022 had mostly halted the fighting.
Sultan al-Arada, a member of the ruling presidential leadership council, described the collapse of government forces in the port city of Mokha and elsewhere on Yemen’s west coast as “painful and regrettable.” He said in the televised interview aired late Saturday that forces “are currently regrouping and will return to the battle.”
On Sunday, Rashad al-Alimi, who leads the presidential council, sought to downplay the defeats as “incidental,” according to comments published by the country’s state-run SABA news agency. The government, he said, “will remain clear and fixed on the goal of retrieving (state) institutions and of reclaiming sovereignty over all national territories.”
On Sunday, the Yemeni military said it launched airstrikes on Houthi positions in Mokha, the coastal town of Dhubab and elsewhere in Taiz province. The rebels reported strikes by the Saudi-backed forces in Taiz province and artillery shelling in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold on Yemen’s northern border with Saudi Arabia.
The advance puts Houthis closer to a major US base in Djibouti
The Houthis’ advance puts them just 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the U.S. military base in Djibouti, on the other side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It’s the main U.S. base in Africa and one of several foreign military bases in Djibouti, including those of China, France and Japan.
The small Horn of Africa nation is already seeing the arrival of displaced Yemenis making the perilous water crossing. More than 2,000 Yemenis have reached Djibouti, the International Organization for Migration said Sunday.
Djibouti’s Economy and Finance Minister Ilyas M. Dawaleh, said on X that the country’s navy, coast guard and other specialized agencies were conducting rescue operations and providing emergency assistance.
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