Temporary restrictions on aircraft arrivals and departures were imposed at 27 Russian airports, Deutsche Welle reported on 16 October, citing its own calculations based on reports from Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned airlines on 1 September that “Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe.” Overnight, most of the airspace over European Russia was closed.
By morning, more than 200 flights had been canceled or delayed at Moscow airports, Deutsche Welle reported, citing figures compiled by a Russian Telegram channel.
— Breaking News (@breakingUAnews) October 16, 2026
Про це ниють росЗМІ. Було відмінено десятки рейсів, у терміналах – дуже багато людей. Пасажири скаржаться на задуху, дикі черги до туалетів та повну невідомість. pic.twitter.com/ZlXxY5c2mq
The list included airports in the capital. All four Moscow airports temporarily suspended arrivals and departures, the Russian outlet Astra reported on 16 October. Russian authorities said they had shot down dozens of drones, while flights were delayed and diverted to alternate airfields, according to the report.
The temporary airport shutdowns were likely a consequence of a massive drone attack on Russia. From 8:00 p.m. on 15 October to 8:00 a.m. on 16 October, Russian air defenses allegedly intercepted and destroyed 644 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles across 26 Russian regions, occupied Crimea, and the Black Sea, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry.
According to the list of regions published by the Russian Defense Ministry, the drone attacks covered a vast area of Russia, from regions bordering Ukraine to the Moscow region, the Volga region, the country’s northwest and southern regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the Black Sea.
Russian air defenses shot down a total of 94 drones approaching Moscow over the evening of 15 October and overnight, according to calculations by the Russian outlet RBC Radio, citing statements by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
In the Kaluga region, air defenses destroyed 27 drones over the evening and night, the regional governor reported. At 9:27 a.m., he updated the figures, saying another 48 UAVs had been shot down overnight, bringing the total to 75. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or infrastructure damage.
In the Tula region, air defenses allegedly destroyed a total of 32 Ukrainian drones. There were no casualties, according to regional Governor Dmitry Milyaev in his Telegram channel.
In the Vladimir region in western Russia, authorities repelled drone attacks overnight. In the city of Vladimir, a drone attempted to attack a heating infrastructure facility, but the attack was stopped, Vladimir Region Governor Alexander Avdeyev reported. Minor damage was reported, but there was no information about casualties.
Ukraine has not yet commented on its involvement in the attacks.
Passengers on flight SU6312 from Kaliningrad to Moscow were unable to land in Moscow because of airspace closure, so the aircraft was diverted to Nizhny Novgorod, Terravia reported. After landing, passengers remained on board for about two hours before being allowed to disembark at 3:30 a.m. Instead of continuing their journey to Moscow by air, they were supposed to be transported by bus, with the trip expected to take about seven hours, the outlet reported.
Passengers were not provided with food or drinks, and one woman could not find a seat on the bus, so she purchased a ticket for an early-morning train herself.
Since the beginning of the year, all four Moscow airports have been completely shut down simultaneously at least 19 times, the Russian outlet Agentstvo reported. During the first 14 days of October, the restrictions lasted 101 hours and 38 minutes, compared with 46 hours and 33 minutes in September, according to the report.
The Trump administration's attempts to fast-track construction of the president's long-promised border wall through Texas' remote Big Bend region have ground to a halt amid fierce opposition, protests, and legal challenges from landowners and conservation groups.
A federal judge on Wednesday released an opinion explaining her decision to issue a preliminary injunction blocking border wall construction through the Big Bend area. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone found that the plaintiffs, which included the Center for Biological Diversity and several longtime residents of the region, had shown a substantial threat of irreparable harm if the construction project is allowed to continue.
The Trump administration wants to spend $7.5 billion building additional security infrastructure along a 500-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border running through the Big Bend region, which includes Big Bend National Park. The federal government began sending threatening letters to property owners announcing its intent to acquire necessary pieces of their land this summer, and it waived several environmental regulations, allowing it to put bulldozers on the ground inside the national park by September.
However, numerous groups and local landowners say the border wall project will alter their way of life and permanently scar one of the most rugged and pristine landscapes in the country. The project attracted bipartisan criticism and protests.
Cardone also found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin exceeded his authority when he issued environmental waivers for the project.
The injunction is a temporary reprieve for property owners such as David Keller, an archaeologist and part-time river guide on the Rio Grande River. The original plans for the border wall expansion would have cut through Keller's 10-acre property near Redford, Texas, putting a 30-foot-tall wall on the levee that sits between the river and the rest of his land.
Keller says the Trump administration gravely underestimated how much anger its tactics and attitude would generate.
"It's a level of arrogance—they're just used to being able to bulldoze over people," David Keller says. "They were moving forward as if they weren't expecting any resistance, but boy, they're due for a wakeup call. And they're having it right now."
Keller is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit against the DHS by Conserve Big Bend, a coalition of landowners, conservationists, river tour guides, researchers, and other affected parties.
Keller says he's loved wild, open country since he was a child, and as soon as he saw the region in the 1990s, he decided he would find a way to live and work there, which he's done for the past 25 years. "It's visually magnificent," Keller says. "It's incredible. It's like no other place I'd ever seen. It's one of the last unspoiled places remaining in the lower 48."
Keller says it's where he plans on being buried, too, although these days he's unsure whether to say "plans" or "planned." The proposed border construction is an existential threat to the life he's built, he says, and if the wall goes up, he'd likely move.
"I didn't come down here to live in a cage," Keller says.
The proposed border wall would not only block access to the river for farmers, ranchers, and outdoors enthusiasts along the river, as well as block the view into Mexico, it would wreck "the whole feeling of the place, the historical cross-border culture that we've developed," Keller says.
So far, the federal government has not tried to seize any private property in the Big Bend region through eminent domain, although it sent letters to property owners this summer requesting access to survey their land and warning them that it held the option to invoke eminent domain if they did not quickly sell.
Both Keller's and the Center for Biological Diversity's lawsuits argue that the department's justification for building and expediting additional border infrastructure in the Big Bend Region are factually and legally incorrect. The DHS determined that the sector of the border is an "area of high illegal entry."
However, despite making up roughly a quarter of the entire U.S.-Mexico border, the Big Bend sector only accounted for between 0.3 percent and 2.2 percent of total border-wide arrests over the past 30 years.
Cardone cited the low apprehension numbers in her finding that Mullin exceeded his authority to issue the waivers.
"The unrebutted evidence shows that the Big Bend Sector is, by far, the sector with the lowest rate of migrant apprehensions along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, both in terms of gross totals and apprehensions per mile of border," Cardone wrote. "Therefore, if the Big Bend Sector is an area of high illegal entry, so is every other sector, and the waiver authority would apply to the entire U.S.-Mexico border."
The post Landowners in Texas' Big Bend Region Fight Trump Administration's Attempts To Seize Land for Border Wall appeared first on Reason Magazine.
“Yemen did not want this war, but we are bringing the fire back to Saudi Arabia.”
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The Saudi kingdom is facing the danger of collapse from soaring war costs as Yemeni air strikes ramp up, hitting its northern neighbor’s capital and industrial centers with impunity.
Yemeni journalist Hussein al-Bukhaiti says the corruption and arrogance of the “House of Evil” is culminating in historic defeat. Its U.S. patron seems unable to avert the coming collapse.
Despite decades of the U.S. selling weapons worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the Saudi rulers, the regime seems shockingly exposed, with no viable defenses. Yemen’s missiles are striking Saudi Arabia at will. The panicky rulers are pleading with the United States and Europe for help.
Yemen’s armed forces are taking the war to Saudi Arabia, striking its airports, imposing a no-fly zone over the entire state and shutting down its vital oil industry.
“The Saudis cannot stop our drones and hypersonic missiles… we are taking the war to them,” says Sanaa-based Hussain al-Bukhaiti.
With no oil exports, Al-Bukhaiti reckons the Saudi rulers are facing an existential nemesis. Many observers have long predicted that the autocratic Saudi kingdom, created by the British Empire, is awaiting downfall from its ossified and family-run power structure.
Speaking from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, Hussain al-Bukhaiti described the Saudi monarchy as “a house of glass” that is now being shattered by air strikes that cannot be defended against.
“Yemen did not want this war, but we are bringing the fire back to Saudi Arabia.”
Western politicians and media are portraying the conflict between the two Arab Peninsula countries as being caused by recent aggression from the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government.
Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid international airport was attacked on October 10 with ballistic missiles that killed several people. Other Saudi airports have also been hit. This has led international airlines to suspend flights.
The state-owned Aramco oil industry has also been blasted with missiles. Fires are raging at major facilities, including at the main base of operations in Dammam on the Persian Gulf coast.
Following the missile strike on Riyadh airport at the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump and all European leaders condemned an “act of terrorism” by Yemen.
Hussain al-Bukhaiti pointed out the gross hypocrisy of European governments not condemning the thousands of Saudi air strikes on Yemen that have occurred since 2015. These governments still remain silent about the ongoing Saudi atrocities against Yemeni civilians. The European Union even declares “solidarity” with Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi monarchy, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, started the war with unprovoked attacks in March 2015. The aggression was enabled by the United States, Britain, and France supplying warplanes, bombs, and intelligence.
These Western powers continue to arm and direct the Saudi regime in its war against Yemen.
Since 2015, there have been thousands of Western-backed air strikes on Yemen, resulting in more than 20,000 mainly civilian deaths.
“They hit everything, schools, hospitals, water-treatment plants, farms, homes, wedding and funeral halls,” says Al-Bukhaiti.
In addition, over 400,000 Yemenis have died from starvation and diseases caused by a blockade on the country imposed by Saudi Arabia and its Western backers for over 10 years.
He says the war reignited in July 2026 after the Saudis broke a four-year truce signed in 2022 by bombing Sanaa international airport. There was no condemnation by Europe of the Saudi violation then.
What Yemen is doing to Saudi Arabia now is but a taste of what the House of Saud inflicted on Yemenis since 2015 with Western support.
The Yemenis this week rejected a reported Saudi proposal for a short-term truce because they see it as just a ploy by the Saudis for rearming and regrouping in a losing situation.
For the war to end, Saudi Arabia must respect Yemen’s sovereignty and stop interfering in its internal affairs.
However, Hussain al-Bukhaiti thinks that the United States will double down and escalate its military involvement in Yemen with a full-blown war. This is not primarily to support the Saudi monarchy, he believes, but rather to prop up the Israeli regime.
Yemen has inflicted huge damage on the Israeli state since it intensified the genocide against Palestinians in October 2023. Yemeni air strikes have repeatedly struck Tel Aviv despite American air defenses.
An expanded U.S. war in Yemen might seem surprising given that Trump has made such a mess of his reckless aggression against Iran and may not have the military forces at his disposal.
But Al-Bukhaiti believes the issue is beyond Trump’s choice. Washington is locked in with the Zionist regime and will do whatever it takes to salvage Israel from defeat. Yemen represents the biggest threat to Israel from the cutting off of its shipping in the Red Sea.
“We are ready for the war that is coming,” he warns.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recorded its highest number of deportations in a single day since President Donald Trump returned to office, border official Tom Homan said, as the administration pushes to expand removals.
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Homan announced the record in a social media post, saying ICE had also carried out more removals last month than in any other month. Figures for fiscal year 2026 are still being finalized, he added.
He also said monthly ICE arrest totals and voluntary departures recorded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had been higher since June than in any previous months.
This morning I was on the ground with the ICE Air Operations team in Alexandria, LA to observe and assess removal operations. First up, a plane load of Haitians being sent back home—including those with criminal records for aggravated assault, sex assault, kidnapping, battery,… pic.twitter.com/Ajb9mgd2EA
— Thomas D. Homan (@RealTomHoman) October 15, 2026
The announcement followed Homan’s visit to ICE Air Operations in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he said he had observed and assessed deportation operations. He described a flight carrying Haitian nationals back to Haiti, including people he said had criminal records for aggravated assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, battery and other offenses.
The administration has urged people whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has expired, as well as those without legal immigration status, to use its voluntary departure program to return to their countries of origin.
“This Administration has made it clear that temporary means TEMPORARY,” Homan wrote, warning that those who remain in the country without legal status would face arrest and deportation.
If you are here illegally, we will find you, arrest you, and DEPORT you.
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) September 1, 2026
Yesterday, the men and women of ICE REMOVED these criminals from our communities:
Homan said the administration was expanding its enforcement capacity to increase removals beyond current record levels and fulfill Trump’s pledge to carry out mass deportations. He described the effort as part of a broader campaign to restore law and order, protect communities and promote economic prosperity.
ICE’s enforcement practices have drawn both support and opposition among members of the public and political figures.
The federal government tried to turn our public servants into deportation agents and force New York City to carry out ICE’s cruel agenda.
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) October 16, 2026
Today, a federal court rejected that effort and upheld our laws.
Every New Yorker deserves to seek help from their city without fear of…
The final fiscal-year figures remain pending, while the administration continues to pursue expanded deportation operations.
The Houthis are increasingly operating independently of Tehran, posing a "clear and very present danger" on the international stage as the terror group rearms and sharpens its strike capabilities, a former U.S. envoy warned Thursday.
The warning came amid deadly missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent days and growing threats to global shipping routes and critical Middle East infrastructure in the run-up.
Turki al-Maliki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, also confirmed Thursday that Houthi attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh had killed 17 and injured 333 others from Oct. 7-11.
Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh, al-Maliki said the Oct. 10 attack involved 10 drones, missiles and other projectiles.
"King Khalid International Airport has been subjected to 20 attacks since (Oct. 1)," he noted.
Tim Lenderking, who served as U.S. special envoy for Yemen from 2021 to 2025 and was posted to Saudi Arabia from 2013 to 2016, said Saudi officials had warned more than a decade ago that the Houthis would become a major threat, a prediction he says has now materialized.
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"The Saudis were very clear to our leaders that they viewed the Houthis as a major threat," Lenderking said of his time in the kingdom a decade ago.
At the time, he said, the group was "quietly building up their capability, burnishing their narrative of why they sought to lead Yemen as a messianic group, as a group from northern Yemen, with an agenda, with a mission."
The Houthis had emerged as a religious and political movement in Yemen in the 1990s, but their ties to Iran developed into a military partnership after 2014, when Tehran expanded its assistance and training during Yemen's civil war.
"The Houthis don't really need the Iranians anymore," Lenderking, a former acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs at the U.S. State Department, continued, adding it was still "a very important relationship that "enabled the Houthis to become the powerful force that they are."
Lenderking, now a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), said, over time, the Houthis had developed their own "homegrown indigenous capability" as they capitalized on any disunity across the Gulf region.
Saturday's missile and drone attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh raised concerns that President Donald Trump could be drawn into a broader regional conflict as Saudi Arabia seeks U.S. assistance.
Asked whether the U.S. would defend Saudi Arabia against further attacks, Trump said, "You'll find out soon."
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Speaking at an MEI briefing, Lenderking said the Houthis' sophisticated weapons and targeting capabilities have transformed the group from a regional insurgency into an international security threat.
"They have the capability to hit around the region, including up into the northern reaches of the Red Sea. So, this is a regional problem, and given the fact that the Houthis control the west coast of Yemen," Lenderking said.
"It's an international problem now."
Lenderking cited the precision of the Riyadh airport attack as evidence of the Houthis' growing capabilities compared with earlier strikes during the Gaza conflict.
"They can hit things better. Now, they are hitting Terminal Four of Riyadh Airport, very specifically. It's a clear and very present danger," he said.
The Houthis reportedly launched multiple drones followed by cruise and ballistic missiles that traveled more than 620 miles to Riyadh, prompting an investigation into possible Saudi air defense failures, according to The Associated Press, citing regional officials.
Saudi forces intercepted two more ballistic missiles targeting Riyadh on Monday. On Tuesday, a Houthi strike caused damage to Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran, sparking a fire that spread across several floors, Reuters reported.
Lenderking said the Houthis have built extensive weapons supply chains, smuggling networks and domestic financing operations that allow them to sustain attacks without relying solely on Tehran.
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"They get a lot of supplies off the open market through the internet, through commercial exchanges. They have a very well entrenched smuggling network, from big boats onto small boats, onto tiny boats, on the pack animals, on people's backs.
"They are able to move things undetected through government terrain, even through various borders and with a lot of wide open space there. They are constantly moving, building, resupplying, restocking, innovating."
The group's self-sufficiency also extends to financing. Lenderking said the Houthis generate revenue through black-market oil sales, taxation and extortion while also forcing families to provide recruits, allowing the group to continue fighting even if Iranian assistance is cut off.
"They have had support from Iran over the years, so they have money in the bank from that," Lenderking said.
"They relied on sales of black market oil in the past. They extort Yemeni transport companies, businesses. They tax people in areas that they control. They force many families to offer up a son to fight on the front lines."
The Houthis' expanding arsenal has raised concerns about potential Chinese involvement in their weapons supply networks.
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Yemen's government has accused the rebels of seeking Chinese components for medium-range ballistic missiles, raising concerns about the group's access to advanced military technology.
"There is a Chinese connection here that's very detrimental," Lenderking warned, adding that front companies have helped the group obtain weapons through commercial channels.
Lenderking warned that the Houthis could also target Saudi energy facilities, pipelines and desalination plants, infrastructure critical to the kingdom's economy and water supply.
"The Houthis have hit pipelines," he said. "They have diesel plants and other energy infrastructure in their sights."
Attacks on such facilities could disrupt global energy markets, maritime commerce and regional stability.
The Houthis also control Yemen's western coastline along the Red Sea, a vital shipping corridor connecting Europe and Asia.
With the rebels now capable of striking targets hundreds of miles away, Lenderking warned that the threat extends far beyond Yemen's borders.
"One blast at Riyadh Airport is a huge statement," the expert said.
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"That's why I come back to the fact that this is an international conflict," he said, adding that "immediate action is required."
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