Reuters World News - Houthis target Saudi, Moscow drone attack and Ed Sheeran

Episode Date: September 20, 2026

Yemen's Houthis said they attacked "sensitive" sites in the Saudi capital Riyadh with missiles and drones.  Ukraine launches its largest drone attack yet on Moscow as Russians vote in parliamentary elections. The ​White House denies access to journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico. And Ed Sheeran calls Israel's treatment of Gazans "unjustifiable". Podcasts, breaking news, and video analysis from the source. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download the Reuters app here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Listen to the Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit the ⁠⁠Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. It's Sunday, September 20th, today. A major escalation in the Gulf, as Yemen's Houthis say they've attacked Saudi capital, Riyadh. The White House turns away CNN, MS now and Politico reporters after Trump's ban. Ukraine launches its largest drone attack yet on Moscow, as Russians vote in parliamentary elections. And Ed Sheeran apologises for. for the macklemore controversy. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week.

A large plume of smoke rises near Riyadh's main airport. As Yemen's Houthis say they attacked sensitive sites in the Saudi capital on Saturday with missiles and drones. Houthi military spokesman Yahyah Siria, saying operations targeted Riyadh and an Aramco facility in the Red Sea City of Yan Bu, a key Saudi oil export hub. They say the operation came as a response to an attack on the Yemeni capital, Sana'a. The fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and Saudi Arabia

has developed as a new theatre of conflict in the wider war that began with US and Israeli strikes against Iran at the end of February. U.S. President Donald Trump has rebuffed Saudi requests for direct U.S. military intervention against the Houthis. Now to Washington, where media crews from CNN and MS Now reported from outside the White House on Saturday, after they and journalists from Politico were denied access. The incident follows President Trump's announcement that he would ban them from the building's grounds. All three news outlets separately said their team's press passes were confiscated on Saturday morning when their journalists went to the White House.

They've signalled that they may contest the ban on the grounds that it conflicts with the US Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and a free press. A social media posed by Trump on Friday accused the outlets of, quote, reporting fake news and added other fake news media outlets to follow. I am making mistakes and I'm so, so sorry. Pop star Ed Shearan apologising at a gig in Philadelphia for his handling of a controversy that erupted this week when rapper McElmore was removed as an opening act

after saying, quote, free Palestine at a concert. The Tours other supporting acts subsequently quit to show solidarity with McElmore. Shearin's speech is a stark change from his statements earlier in the week when he posted on Instagram that his concert audiences do not expect a political forum. What happened in Israel and at the Nob of Music Festival on October 7th was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate. Ukraine has launched what Moscow's mayor is calling the biggest ever drone attack on the Russian capital,

saying it's an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the final day of a parliamentary election. President Vladimir Putin has cast the vote as a test of support for Russia's war in Ukraine. It's the first such election since Russia launched its full-scale war in February 2022, and is expected to see the ruling United Russia Party easily retain its top. dominance. In a political system, critics say, does not tolerate dissent. At a polling station in Moscow, 76-year-old university lab head, Anatoly Somenenko, says war entails expenses, but that it's necessary. Ukrainian strikes have knocked out a significant part of Russia's oil refining capacity,

triggering oil product shortages, fuel price increases, and long queues at filling stations in many regions across the country's 11 time zones. The US military says it killed four people in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, alleging it was involved in drug trafficking. The attack is the latest in a campaign dating back to last year that targets what the Trump administration describes as, quote, narco-terrorists. Since the campaign started, US strikes on vessels in the Caribbean

and the Eastern Pacific have killed. more than 200 people. France's president Emmanuel Macron is meeting Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney in the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Michelin, weeks after President Trump posted an image on social media showing the archipelago covered by an American flag. Located off Canada's Atlantic coast, San Pierre and Michelon is France's only remaining territory in North America. Macron's stop there is en route to the annual.

United Nations General Assembly gathering of world leaders and carries symbolic weight after Trump posted that map depicting the US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean draped in a US flag and labeled United States of America. For their part, Denmark and Greenland have said that any agreement with the US will not compromise Greenland's sovereignty. After President Trump said a deal-states,

on Friday would give Washington, quote, permanent control over the Arctic Islands security, leaving its precise scope and clear. Rootty's chief Denmark correspondent, Jacob Granho Pedersen, explains. This means that Trump will not get ownership over Greenland, as he has said numerous times that he would like to. Denmark has been very much pushing this diplomatic track. It seems to, if it goes through, that this will conclude. of a major diplomatic crisis for governing.

Jacob says that while the deal lacks detail, it seems to allow the US to build up a major troop presence on Greenland and prevent other countries from building their own bases there. You can say that under the defense agreement dating back to 1951, the US already had de facto, unlimited military access. But Trump's comments, and that's where it gets a bit unclear, suggests that Washington will have some sort of formal control

over which countries can make investments into sensitive areas in Greenland and which countries can have military presence in Greenland. So if that's true, then Denmark would actually seed sort of formal foreign policy, power and resources to Washington, which is obviously highly unusual for a country to do. So in that sense, it can be seen as a real win for Trump. North Korea launched two missiles off its eastern coast early on Sunday. its second set of tests in roughly a week. The first projectile flew approximately 280 miles

and is presumed to belong to the Huasong 11 series. Japanese public broadcaster NHK says the projectile came down outside Japan's exclusive economic zone. If the subsequent launch is confirmed to be a ballistic missile, that will mark two consecutive ballistic missile tests by North Korea within a three-hour window. Pyongyang recently accused the US of driving tensions on the Korean peninsula through a series of military drills. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on Thursday with a big new issue, artificial intelligence, on the agenda.

There will be plenty to discuss on the more traditional tensions like Taiwan, a US ally which China claims is its own. And that's making US allies in the region nervous, according to. correspondent John Getty. The reason they're concerned about this is because Trump said when he met Xi in May that arms sales to Taiwan were a negotiating chip with China. And this is unnerved US allies in Asia who fear that Trump may be willing to soften Washington stance towards Taiwan in order to get economic wins with Xi. Officials in Tokyo and Taipei are sure that Xi is likely to raise the issue of Taiwan with Trump. He did in May. He has repeatedly raised it with previous US presidents. And they're concerned that if Trump says something that

sort of implies that US resolve to defend Taiwan is weakening in some way, that could embolden China who's constantly holding war games around the island and putting more pressure on the People of Taiwan. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and the news shaping our world, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.