Tangle - Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and the U.S. response

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

The Houthi attacks. On Thursday, the United States and Britain — with support from Canada, the Netherlands, and Bahrain — bombed more than a dozen Houthi rebel sites across Yemen in retaliation for a series of attacks on commercial ships crossing the Red Sea. On Saturday morning, the U.S. hit an additional site in Yemen it said was putting ships at risk. The Iran-backed Houthis had disregarded weeks of warnings and continued to attack merchant ships passing through the Red Sea, leading to the strikes.You can read today's podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here (NPR) and here (CNN). You can also check out our latest YouTube video about misinformation and fake news that has spread like wildfire in the three months since Hamas’s attack on Israel and the subsequent fighting in Gaza here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (5:04), Today’s story (7:50), Left’s take (11:28), Right’s take (15:33), Isaac’s take (19:46), Listener question (24:14), Under the Radar (24:44), Numbers (25:45), Have a nice day (27:07)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the poll. What do you think of the response to the attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Hey everybody, Isaac here with a little bit of a personal update. One of my favorite pieces of advice I've ever gotten was this. If you're struggling to make a decision about whether to do something or not, consider which decision would make the best story, and then do that thing. This advice does not apply all the time. It might be a better story to run the red light than not to run the red light, but you still shouldn't run the red light.

Yet, this has also guided me in various times where I was torn on whether or not to do something, and it helped guide me when I made a decision last month that leads me to the following sentence. As you listen to this, I am currently on a motorcycle trip through Bolivia. The short version of that story is that I was recently visiting my family on the border of Texas, where I spend a couple months every year, and a few of my cousins were sitting around talking about their motorcycle trip to Bolivia that I've been hearing about for months. Off-road, through the mountains, death road, history, food, culture, 650cc dual sport bikes. They kept peer pressuring me to come, dangling the tantalizing prospect that I was missing out on a truly

once-in-a-lifetime family trip in exchange for not solving a few days of work. So, I had a choice. I could decide there was no way to join the fun because of my schedule, return to my office in Philadelphia and miss out on the trip, likely regretting it forever, or think of a way to make the trip work after a wedding I was going to in Mexico, not cut any corners with Tangle readers, and do the thing that would create the much better story. I chose the latter. Obviously, I cannot take 14 days away from Tangle fresh off our two-week holiday vacation. Instead, after all my plans were nearly derailed by an illness, I got down to Bolivia earlier this week, and I will be

doing six days of the trip and then breaking off early and heading back to the States this weekend. If you are listening to this on Tuesday, I am somewhere hopefully in the Amazon or maybe climbing the Andes Mountains towards La Paz. And as far as Tangle goes, I was involved in today's newsletter. I wrote most of it, as I usually do, which you're about to hear on the podcast. And I am supposed to have internet each night, so I'll be doing Tangle work in the evenings

and checking in with the team. But the solution we came up with was to substitute tomorrow, Wednesdays, my take with staff analysis, and then put together a reader mailbag for Thursday, and then do our normal Friday edition on Friday. So the upshot of all that is I get to go to Bolivia, you guys get some fresh content, we don't miss a podcast, and everybody wins. But I want to add one more thing.

I had some apprehension about making this decision, not just because of the inherent absurdity of, hey, I'm starting the year by heading to Bolivia to ride motorcycles across the country for a week, but also because I'm sure there are some listeners out there who are going to question my priorities. Yet, much like my favorite piece of advice, I'm also guided by the retrospectives of so many of my elders who always seem to look back on life and wish they spent more time with family, more time traveling, more time living, and less time being handcuffed by work. With them in mind, I hope you'll understand my decision too. And of course, there is the simple truth that traveling like this, that seeing other countries, meeting new people, learning about the world outside my U.S. bubble

is good for me. It's good for my writing and ultimately good for my work here with Tangle. My many trips abroad have been some of the most informative and eye-opening of my life. So I'm looking forward to actually reporting back to you about the experience and taking everything in through the lens of an American political reporter. For now, I hope you enjoy today's break and this week's break from my voice. We have our trusty podcast editor, John, tagging in. I hope you enjoy Thursday's mailbag and of course, Friday's special edition. And a huge thank you to the Tangle team for picking up the slack while I'm gone. As I recently learned, they say in Bolivia, saludos, and I'll see you guys on the other side.

Have a great week. Peace. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get news from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of Isaac's take. I am your host for today, John Law. And today we're going to be talking about the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the U.S. response. As always, we'll start off today with some quick hits.

First up, former President Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses with 51% of the vote. Ron DeSantis finished second with 21%, and Nikki Haley was third with 19%. Vivek Ramaswamy finished fourth, then suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. Number two, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps took responsibility for a series of ballistic missile attacks near the U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraq on Monday, saying it was targeting the headquarters of spies. Four people were killed and six injured in the attack. No U.S. forces were killed or wounded. Number three, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released from the hospital after a two-week stay for complications from prostate cancer surgery. Additionally, President Biden called Austin's failure to communicate his hospitalization to the White House a lapse in judgment, but maintained that he has no plans

to fire him. Number four, Lai Ching-te won Taiwan's presidential election after a campaign centered on future relations with China. Lai is currently Taiwan's vice president and will be inaugurated on May 20th. Number five, large swaths of the U.S. are experiencing frigid temperatures and icy conditions. The windchill is below minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit in many parts of the Rockies, Great Plains, and Midwest. Separately, New York City experienced its first significant snowfall in the Red Sea. The U.S. military says there have been more than two dozen attacks in the last seven weeks, the most serious yesterday, when Houthis fired more than

20 drones and missiles right at U.S. and allied warships. This morning, American fighter jets and a submarine sending a message striking back against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. It looks like they not only went after the sites where they launched these Iranian-supplied weapons, they went after multiple, if not dozens, of storage facilities. Pentagon officials say the U.S. and British military launched retaliatory strikes against more than 60 targets in Yemen using Tomahawk cruise missiles. Due this morning, the U.S. Military Central Command now says U.S. fighter aircraft shot down an anti-ship cruise missile that was fired at a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea from a Houthi-controlled

area of Yemen. And this comes just days after the U.S. and the U.K. launched strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The militant group vowed to retaliate. On Thursday, the United States and Britain, with support from Canada, the Netherlands and Bahrain, bombed more than a dozen Houthi rebel sites across Yemen in retaliation for a series of attacks on commercial ships crossing the Red Sea. On Saturday morning, the U.S. hit an additional site in Yemen it said was putting ships at risk. The Iran-backed Houthis had disregarded weeks of warnings and continued to attack merchant ships passing through the Red Sea, leading to the strikes. President Joe Biden said the strikes were intended as a demonstration that the U.S. and its allies would not tolerate attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea. The decision to attack the sites in Yemen marked a notable escalation in tensions across the region and

came after weeks of pressure on the U.S. from its allies to do more to protect merchant ships in the region. Roughly 12% of the world's oil, 8% of its grain, and 8% of its liquefied natural gas passes through the Red Sea on merchant ships along with other commodities. The Houthis have attacked approximately 30 vessels in the Red Sea over the last few months. In one of its more brazen attacks, on November 19th, Houthi gunmen hijacked a vessel being crewed mainly by Filipinos and took it to a Yemeni port. Ships tied to more than 40 countries have been impacted by the raids. The Houthis say their attacks are in retaliation

for Israel's aerial bombardment and invasion of Gaza. Ali Al-Khawam, a high-ranking Houthi official, vowed there would be retaliation for the U.S.-led strikes. The battle will be bigger and beyond the imagination and expectation of the Americans and the British, he said in a post on X. The Houthis appeared to respond on Sunday when they fired a cruise missile toward a U.S. destroyer. Then on Monday, the Houthis struck a U.S. merchant ship off the coast of Aden. A reminder, in the Arab world, one of the major conflicts is between Sunni and Shia Muslims. The Houthis are Iran-backed Shiite Shia Muslim rebels who have been fighting Yemen's government for nearly 20 years. In 2014,

the Houthis seized Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, and now control the capital and northwest region of the country. Saudi Arabia and a coalition of international nations then intervene to try and restore the internationally recognized government to power, which has led to years of fighting between proxies from Saudi Arabia, a Sunni coalition, and Iran, a Shia coalition. Under the past three administrations, the United States has provided funding to Saudi Arabia in the conflict. The Yemeni civil war has been one of the world's most devastating humanitarian disasters, leading to roughly 377,000 deaths, 60% of which the UN estimates are the result of indirect causes like hunger

and disease. 4.5 million people have been displaced, and Yemen remains one of the poorest nations on earth. In 2023, talks between Saudi Arabia and Yemen raised hope for a peace deal, but those talks have ceased. Since Israel's invasion of Gaza, the Houthis, along with Hezbollah, another Shiite group that is based in Lebanon, announced their support for Hamas and began launching missile and drone attacks on Israel. Houthi leaders have said that they will not stop bombarding Israel or attacking and raiding merchant ships until Israel's incursion into Gaza stops, though Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea predate the latest conflict. Today, we're going

to explore some commentary from the right and the left about the U.S. decision to strike the Houthis and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. First, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left is split on the decision to carry out the strikes, with many worrying that it could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. Some say the Houthi attacks on commercial ships left Biden no choice, and they think a strong response was justified. Others suggest that the U.S. is playing into Iran's hands by choosing to escalate the conflict. In The Guardian, Mohamed Bazi said, by bombing Yemen, the West risks repeating its own mistakes. Western leaders insist they want to reduce the risk of war in Gaza spreading to other parts of

the Middle East. But the U.S.-led air and naval strikes on Yemen are the most significant expansion of the conflict since Israel launched its devastating assault on Gaza after the October 7th attacks by Hamas. Instead of avoiding a wider war, the U.S. and its allies are escalating regional tensions and adding fuel to a conflict that has already spilled over into Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Red Sea, Bazzi wrote. The U.S. and its allies are resisting the clearest path for de-escalation across the region, putting pressure on Israel to end its invasion and accept a ceasefire. A truce would remove the Houthis' rationale for the aggression against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and the movement's leaders have said they will cease disrupting global trade

once Israel stops bombing Gaza, Bazzi said. Saudi Arabia's war with the Houthis should be a cautionary tale for the U.S. and Britain. The regional power they supported spent years trying to destroy the Houthis, only to be ground down and forced to negotiate a settlement. The Washington Post editorial board called the strikes strong, proportionate, and overdue. Some regional analysts are already warning that the action plays into the Houthis' hands and risks igniting a wider Middle East conflagration without much chance of having their intended effect. To deter further Houthi attacks on international shipping, the board wrote,

Precisely the opposite is true. The Houthis already escalated the regional conflict by using the pretext of Israel's war with Hamas to launch unprovoked attacks against commercial ships traversing the Red Sea. The United States and its coalition allies, Britain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Bahrain, had little choice but to mount a strong response, and this coalition employed just the right amount of proportionate firepower. The Houthis launched dozens of drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels in one of the world's most vital shipping lanes. Remember, these are not warships. They are container vessels ferrying food, oil, natural gas, automotive supplies, toys, furniture, and household appliances between Asia and Europe, the board said.

We have no illusion that these airstrikes mark an end to the conflict, but the United States, with wide support, open or tacit from other countries, has sent a strong message. In Bloomberg, Mark Champion said, Iran wins with U.S. airstrikes on Houthis. There are at least two views you can take on the U.S. decision, joined by Britain, to strike Houthi targets in Yemen early Friday. Although they are entirely contradictory, both would be correct, Champion wrote. The first is that this was inevitable, both politically and to retain credible deterrence against further hostile actions by Iran and its proxies, doing nothing was simply not an option for President Joe Biden. The second view, and doubtless the reason he had first hesitated, is that there is little likelihood of success and a measurable risk of escalation.

One can't help but feel that the U.S., like Israel after October 7th, is dancing to a tune that was scripted for it by a rogue militia in a failed quasi-state that has little to lose, Champion said. Hamas, Iran, and their allies are looking to inflame distrust and hatred of Israel and the U.S. across the Middle East, to the point where any connection between them becomes so toxic that leaders from Saudi Arabia to Egypt are forced to distance themselves. The kind of economic insecurity rapprochement that had been underway before October 7th would become politically impossible. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is also mixed on the strikes, with some saying they were appropriate but improperly carried out in the absence of congressional approval. Supporters of the response say it was a necessary act of deterrence against Iran and its proxies, but likely not strong enough. Others

criticize Biden for mixed messaging on his Middle East policy and suggest he still misunderstands the threat posed by Iran. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Hear Your Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. In the American Conservative, Representative Warren Davidson, the Republican from Ohio, argued that Biden is violating the Constitution with the strikes. Congress, the one body empowered by Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution to authorize military force and declare war, has still not heard from the White House. For over a month, President Biden consulted multiple foreign nations to plan these strikes on Puthi military targets, but never once felt obliged to garner approval for them as

mandated by law, Davidson said. This must not be conflated with a defensive military action, which the president may conduct if imminent danger exists to our nation and its people. Since this was not the case, President Biden is constrained in his war-making abilities through the check and balance of congressional authority. It is entirely by design that the legislative branch holds the power to authorize combat, Davidson said. Yet Congress has abdicated from this job to avoid political risk and instead forces others to risk their lives in endless wars. While I personally

think the response was long overdue and support a strike to defend critical maritime vessels in the Red Sea, I will never ignore the U.S. Constitution by condoning the White House's premeditated offensive strike when it failed to receive or even seek proper congressional authorization. National Review's editors endorsed the long-overdue strikes. Previously, the White House's passivity was attributed to the Biden administration's concerns that striking Houthi targets risked triggering a wider conflict in the region, but that, too, is unsatisfying. The wider conflict in the region has been a fact of life since early October of last year. The administration's actions on Thursday night merely constitute an acknowledgment of the ongoing conflict's

existence, the editors said. The costly strikes imposed on the Houthis in no way are proportionate to, much less do they exceed, the benefits Iran has enjoyed as a result of its regional campaign of terror. But we will know soon enough whether Iran and its proxies are deterred, whether it's Hezbollah withdrawing assets from the Israeli border in response to Jerusalem's recent strike on Hamas commanders in Beirut, or Tehran's calibrated volley of missiles into Iraq to protest a 2020 strike that neutralized Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians know how to communicate de-escalatory intention

in ways Americans recognize. If deterrence is not restored, Iran's region-wide campaign of terrorism and piracy will continue apace. In the New York Post, Michael Goodwin wrote, Biden's handling of the Middle East crisis is just downright dangerous. The commander-in-chief either hasn't connected the dots or is refusing to see the links to Iran. How else to explain his determination to focus on the symptoms and ignore the cause of a potential global conflict, Goodwin wrote. All the terror groups are Tehran's proxies, and the sequential activation of them is coordinated by the Mullahs. They aim to destroy Israel and are making moves to see how far they can go before the United States stops them,

or more accurately, when this president will stop them. The initial U.S. strikes made noise and got attention, but were not designed to achieve a military objective. The too-limited assault came gift-wrapped with assurances the U.S. is not looking for a wider war, Goodwin added. Unless Biden responds in ways that actually deter Iran, he will be forced deeper into a hole of his own making. Biden's efforts are placating Iran. The Arab street and his domestic critics are not just doomed to fail. They are also directly contributing to the risk of a larger war, one where America gets sucked in by Biden's refusal to be clear and consistent about enforcing his red lines. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to Isaac's take. Just a reminder, this is Isaac's commentary, and I'm just going to be reading it in the first person. Let me get something off my chest to start because I feel like I'm losing my mind. I was shocked, indeed a bit appalled,

to see so many Tangle followers on Instagram and random leftists on X or Twitter, whatever we're calling it these days, not just conflating Yemen and Houthis, but expressing support for the Houthis for their brave or clever actions to disrupt Red Sea shipping, purportedly in an effort to stop all the violence against Palestinians. One prominent liberal pundit, whose account I'm not going to link to because I've given her too much attention already, actually described them as non-violent while they're literally shooting rockets at civilian ships. No, the Houthis have not killed anyone in their attacks on merchant vessels, but if you were stopped in traffic and someone shot at you and took your car,

that wouldn't be non-violent simply because you got away alive. Newsflash, the Houthis are not doing this because they care about the Palestinian cause. They are not bent out of shape about civilian deaths, as evidenced by their and Saudi Arabia's total disregard for civilian casualties in Yemen, where their own people are dying by the hundreds of thousands. Nor is this all new. Long before the latest incursion into Gaza, Houthi rebels were attacking and hijacking ships in the Red Sea.

They're doing this because they are literally pirates, Islamic extremists who want money, power, and death to the infidels. Their slogan is a call for death to America, Israel and Jews, and victory for Islam. They are working hard to bring back slavery in Yemen. They are not the Yemeni government and shouldn't be conflated as such. Attacking foreign ships that are not part of the conflict in Gaza as they try to transport goods through the Red Sea is also not an effective way to wage a war against Israel. None of this is to absolve Israel from the mass civilian deaths in Gaza or the U.S. for its funding of Saudi Arabia in the

war in Yemen or the Saudis for inflicting so much horror in Yemen over the last.S. for its funding of Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen, or the Saudis for inflicting so much horror in Yemen over the last 10 years. But it is to say that the Houthis are not fighting some moral battle, nor have they demonstrated that they care about the deaths of Palestinians or Yemenis. Given all that, it's hard to blame Biden for his actions. He warned them over and over again that this would happen, and at some point, when you're the president and you draw a red line, you have to enforce it. It's worth noting that these strikes reportedly killed five Houthi fighters, zero civilians, and destroyed a whole lot of Houthi infrastructure being used in attacks like the one on the Filipino-run merchant ship. I actually think that's a pretty good response.

Of course, the most concerning aspect of this situation comes into focus when you take stock of the full picture, especially after the Houthis resumed their attacks on commercial ships yesterday. Many pundits keep warning about the potential of a wider regional conflict, but it sure seems that the conflict is already here. U.S. forces are bombing targets in Yemen, is already here. U.S. forces are bombing targets in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Israel is bombing Gaza and Lebanon. Houthis in Yemen are going after anything in the Red Sea, while Hezbollah is firing on Israel from Lebanon, and Hamas continues to pledge more violence. Iran is now directly involved after the strikes near the U.S. consulate in Iraq yesterday, and their proxies remain plenty active. If this isn't a regional

conflict, I don't really know what is. Biden needs to tread carefully. For starters, the question of his authority to launch these strikes without Congress is murky at best, though there is a good argument that this move was within his power as president. More to the point, the message was sent. The U.S. and its allies have drawn a red line. Now they need to focus their considerable resources and influence on ending the violence in Gaza and turning the temperature down across the region. Sometimes shows of force, like this one, can do that. But more often than not, it just starts a new cycle. All signs here point to the latter, which is everything the White House needs to know to pursue a new cycle. All signs here point to the latter, which is everything the White House needs

to know to pursue a different path. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for Isaac's take. We are going to skip today's reader questions since we gave our main story and Isaac's note at the top a little extra space. If you'd like to have your question answered in the newsletter or on the podcast, you can send a message to Isaac directly at Isaac at ReadTangle.com. That's I-S-A-A-C at readtangle.com. All right, next up is our under-the-radar story. A new federal food assistance program was recently passed by Congress and is set to begin this summer, which allocates $120 per child to eligible families to purchase food while school is not in session

and is projected to help provide food for 21 million children. The $2.5 billion initiative comes as food insecurity in U.S. households rose from 10.2% to 12.8% from 2021 to 2022. Fifteen states, however, have opted not to sign up for the program, citing concerns about the program's mechanics and administrative costs, as well as ideological objections and a lack of faith in the federal government. As a result of the state's decisions not to participate, an estimated 8 million children will be shut out of the program. The New York Times has a story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of Houthi-controlled targets hit by the

U.S. and British airstrikes last week is 60, according to the U.S. Air Force's Mideast Command. The number of bombs and missiles fired by the U.S. and British forces as part of the initial strikes was 150, according to the Pentagon. The percentage of people across 16 Arab countries who said the United States is the biggest threat to regional security and stability in the Middle East in 2020 was 23%, according to a January 2024 poll from the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. The percentage of people across 16 Arab countries who said that the United States is the biggest threat to regional security and stability in the Middle East in 2024 is 51%. The percentage

of people across 16 Arab countries who said Israel is the biggest threat to regional security and stability in the Middle East in 2020 was 41%. The percentage of people across 16 Arab countries who said Israel is the biggest threat to regional security and stability in the Middle East in 2020 was 41%. The percentage of people across 16 Arab countries who said Israel is the biggest threat to regional security and stability in the Middle East in 2024 is 26%. The percentage of Americans who said Iran is the United States' greatest enemy is 2%, according to a 2023 Gallup poll. The percentage of Americans who said China is the United States' greatest enemy is 50% according to that same Gallup poll. All right, and last but not least is our Have a Nice Day section. Cambodia's archaeological sites suffered widespread looting during civil conflicts in the latter half

of the 20th century, and its government has spent years pursuing the return of antiquities, some of which it says are on display in American museums. Now much of that artwork is making its way back to Cambodia. The family of the late American billionaire George Lindenman has agreed to return 33 looted artifacts to Cambodia, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Meanwhile, 13 stolen works are being returned to Cambodia in according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Meanwhile, 13 stolen works are being returned to Cambodia in concert with an investigation from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York and Homeland Security. The repatriation is part of a wider

trend of works of art returning to Cambodia. In 2021, the United States repatriated 27 smuggled antiquities to the Southeast Asian nation, including statues valued at $3.8 million and last year returned 30 more. NPR has the story on the Met and CNN has a story on the Lindenman family. You can check both of those out with links in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you want to support our work, you can go to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. We're also trying to build up our subscribers and followers to our various sites, including this podcast. We're going to be adding new content in the coming weeks later this year, and we really want to build this up. So if you haven't yet, share this with some friends, share this with some strangers.

Share it with anybody who you think might share your desire of getting a wider range of news from across the political spectrum. And of course, we have a YouTube channel where we are putting out long-form, high-quality video content and interviews. So if you haven't yet, please go to the channel and subscribe. I take a look at the metrics and the analytics all the time. I see that there's a lot of people who are watching the videos and commenting on the videos, but have not yet actually subscribed to the page. There's a little red button in the video itself

that you can click and become a subscriber. We are at 8,400. I would love to see it get to 10,000 in the next couple of weeks. That would be amazing. We're going to be putting up some new content soon, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I hope you had a great weekend. I hope you're having a great day and we will talk to you again tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, Peace. who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll be right back. to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.