What happened
Yemen’s Houthis yesterday seized control of the key Red Sea port city of Mokha, giving the Iran-backed rebel group more control over the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The “lightning Houthi advance” down the Red Sea coast “came with direct guidance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seeking to open a new front in Iran’s war with the U.S.,” Reuters said, citing Yemeni and Iranian sources. 

Who said what
Mokha is about 50 miles north of Bab el-Mandeb, a “geopolitical chokepoint similar to the Strait of Hormuz” on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula, CNN said. If the Houthis “use their presence in Mokha to ramp up threats or attacks on shipping in the Red Sea,” The Associated Press said, that “gives Iran another potential point of leverage in its war with the U.S.” 

Saudi Arabia “pivoted to the Red Sea to export most of its oil” after the Iran war shut down Hormuz, The New York Times said. After Mokha fell yesterday, Brent crude rose above $106 a barrel and U.S. diesel prices topped $6 a gallon for the first time.

What next?
The Houthis are “expected to try to push farther south to try and take territory next to the strait,” the Times said. An “effective Houthi blockade of Bab al-Mandeb” could “require US military intervention,” CNN said.

What happened
Joseph diGenova, a former federal prosecutor and ally of President Donald Trump, resigned yesterday from the Justice Department, where he was leading a wide-ranging conspiracy investigation into Trump’s perceived political foes. DiGenova (pictured above) was hired in April, weeks after Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi amid his “repeated expressed frustration” with her “pace — and limited success — in overseeing efforts to target his rivals,” The Washington Post said. He’s departing “amid mounting frustration from the Justice Department and White House over the pace and management of the probe,” The Associated Press said.

Who said what
The Florida-based investigation, which Trump’s allies call the “grand conspiracy,” is the “most fevered of the many revenge investigations” Trump has “demanded” from the Justice Department, The New York Times said. It “hinges on an unusual and untested legal theory,” the Post said: “that previous administrations conspired for years to violate Trump’s rights through a series of investigations.”

“If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem,” deGenova told the New York Post yesterday. He later told the AP there was “plenty of evidence,” but “it just takes time to get there, and some people want to get there a little faster than others.”

What next?
The “investigation has always been something of a tall order,” the AP said. So far, “no charges have been brought and it remains unclear whether any will be.”

A soccer player who “revs up teammates with F-bombs in a thick London accent” has become the “unlikely successor to the throne of a traditional kingdom in Uganda,” said The Times of London. George Desmond Kamurasi, the captain and goalkeeper of SE Dons in Bexleyheath, England, is a first cousin of the Tooro subregion’s late king and a grandson of King George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III, who ruled between 1928 and 1965.

The kingdom’s royal succession committee selected Kamurasi after the death of King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, who had occupied the throne in Tooro since 1995, after succeeding his father at age 3. Oyo’s death prompted an “outpouring of grief” across Tooro and Uganda, said news site UG Diplomat. President Yoweri Museveni described him as a “good person and a good leader” whose death was a “great loss to the people of Tooro and Uganda.”

In contrast to Oyo, Kamurasi has spent most of his adulthood in Britain, “building a life largely outside Uganda’s royal spotlight,” said Pulse Uganda. The succession committee settled on him last week, with 15 of the 18 members present voting for him, and a formal proclamation is expected after Oyo’s burial this weekend.

Kamurasi is “reluctant to swap his goalkeeping gloves for the crown,” said The Times. But if the decision is officially confirmed and he accepts the role, said Pulse, the “qualities” he preached on the soccer field, such as “discipline, resilience, accountability and hunger for success,” will then be “tested on a much bigger stage.”