In the movie The In Between, set in Eagle Pass, a group of five athletic high school boys jog down a dirt road. To their left is a thick brush of reeds that line the Rio Grande. To their right is the steel border wall, looming ominously. 

“Hey, the Border Patrol, dude!” one says as a car approaches.

“He’s like, ‘What the heck?’” another says as they step aside to allow the unmistakable green-and-white pickup to pass. 

Later, on the Mexican side, a group of elementary-aged boys sit on a branch overlooking the river. “How cool to get across,” one says in Spanish, “When you cross this bridge here, you can see turtles in the water.”

The Piedras Negras boys look to the sky in awe as a pair of military helicopters fly over, drowning out the sound of birds and insects. “So cool,” one says before they all jump into the river to swim. 

After The In Between screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival in October, an audience member told director Roberta “Robie” Flores that these scenes had caused her to seize up, bracing herself for impending tragedy. To Flores’ surprise, another spectator had the same reaction in Mexico at the Morelia Film Festival. 

For viewers from the border, scenes like these do not invoke the same tension or sense of dread. They depict a normal part of growing up here: in other words, not much. The high schoolers laugh and continue running. The younger kids swim until it’s time to go home. 

“Isn’t it funny?” the audience member in Morelia asked Flores. “Our expectation of the border is so ingrained that the whole time I was just waiting for something bad to happen. And then it didn’t, and then you took us to a carne asada. I really needed that.” 

For Flores, those reactions were gratifying. “That was so beautiful to hear because this is what we’re trying to do,” she said during my recent Zoom interview with her and her brother and producer Alex Flores. “Our plan worked.” 

In stark contrast to dramatic border thrillers like Sicario, where a cartel shootout breaks out on the El Paso international bridge in broad daylight, boredom is often the worst-case scenario for people who actually live along the border, at least on the U.S. side. And a flurry of new films is now correcting the record.

A still image from The In Between of two
Eagle Pass teenagers after their high school
graduation (Courtesy/The In Between)

In Hummingbirds, a 2023 coming-of-age documentary, two college-aged girls pass the summer in Laredo, two hours downriver from Eagle Pass. They walk right up to the riverbank and wave at people fishing across the divide, who wave back. For co-director and co-star Estefania Contreras, who was born in Mexico but grew up in Laredo, her border crisis is trying to get a status update on her immigration application so she can work a summer job.

In Going Varsity in Mariachi, a 2023 documentary set in the Rio Grande Valley, a scene of an international bridge is as unremarkable as shots of palm-tree-lined streets typical of the area. Many viewers might not even consider the movie’s South Texas setting. Instead, they might focus on the universal high school experience of an underdog varsity team winning state, hugging, crying, graduating, then moving on. 

These are just a few of the films traveling the festival circuit across the United States and beyond (Hummingbirds won a Grand Prix award at the Berlin International Film Festival). They often surprise audience members who come with a negative preconception of border stories.

In the vast, misunderstood region that straddles, in Texas, 1,254 miles from El Paso to the Gulf, creatives are taking control of their own stories. For people like Robie and Alex Flores, combating negative narratives is intentional. Others aren’t engaging directly in this fight, choosing to make horror flicks and stoner comedies. Some have worked in Los Angeles or Austin and are coming home. Others are resisting the old call to leave for brighter lights, staying put, and improvising with old camcorders and cell phones.   

To many Americans, the southern edge of civilization lies somewhere in San Antonio (or even Austin). Long dismissed or disregarded, the Texas-Mexico border has come to be seen as a violent no-man’s-land thanks to incessant sensational news coverage and cartel thrillers. But, partly because of this cultural isolation, the region has also served as an incubator for creatives with unique “in between” experiences that defy the broad Latino tropes we see depicted on screen: the dusty roads, stray dogs, the abuelita lighting a candle to La Virgen, the overuse of words like “mija” in forced Spanglish. 

Historically, a lack of creative outlets and infrastructure has caused many to leave the border for entertainment hubs like Los Angeles, New York, and Austin. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, director of high-budget films Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) and The Current War (2017), left Laredo for New York University (NYU) film school in the early 1990s. At the time, he didn’t appreciate the unique perspective he brought, instead coming to New York with a case of imposter syndrome, working alongside relatively more privileged students from places like Connecticut and California. 

“I FELT SO GASLIT FROM MY ENTIRE EXPERIENCE BEING A BORDER CHILD.”

“I never wanted to get out of this place. I love Laredo and always have,” said Gomez-Rejon. “But I had no choice. This was pre-internet, when I needed access to film, film history, 61mm film, bolex. … In hindsight, I understand what I needed was exposure to a community that mirrored what my real life would look like as a professional filmmaker.”

Perhaps other than Austin, that kind of community has been largely nonexistent in Texas aside from limited audiovisual programs at high schools or colleges, where students might learn the fundamentals of camera work or editing but then be compelled to leave to actually earn a living. 

This has now started to change because of a confluence of factors. An institutional decentralization, from Los Angeles to other film hubs, has allowed for a burgeoning filmmaking scene centered around locations including Atlanta and Austin. The internet has made it easier to edit or submit audition tapes from across the country. And, for a strong current of new filmmakers from the border, it was the 2016 election that sparked an acute urge to set the story straight about the region. 

Flores, the director of The In Between, didn’t know that she wanted to engage in border narratives when she went to NYU to study journalism. This started to change when she was doing freelance video editing for Bloomberg in New York during Trump’s first rise to the White House. 

“I would hear the sound bites [about the border] all day,” she said. “I thought, ‘Am I crazy?’ It’s such a chill place, but everyone on the news is making it sound like an action movie. I felt so gaslit from my entire experience being a border child.” 

Her feeling is supported by objective data. Even as immigration ebbs and flows and political winds shift, Texas border cities are consistently among the safest in the nation.

“I was just so over it. I thought, ‘I’m just gonna have to make un chingo de películas fronterizas to flood the space of movies.’”

As any filmmaker knows, making even one movie is a daunting endeavor, much less chingos. The In Between, for instance, took about five years to reach final cut after a significant rework with the help of consultant Barbara Cigarroa, a Laredo native. 

“Then we heard about Hummingbirds out of Laredo, and I was like ‘Are you kidding me, there’s more young people out there that are also doing a fun, whimsical story about how cute our experiences are on the border?!’” Flores said. “I want to be friends with these people.” 

Flores and her brother fire off a list of recent border gems: Cristina Ibarra’s Las Marthas (2014), University of Texas at Austin film professor Iliana Sosa’s What we Leave Behind (2022) and her El Paso episode of God Save Texas (2024), Isabel Castro’s Mija (2022), Maisie Crow’s At the Ready (2021), and Aitch Alberto’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets to the Universe (2023). 

“It felt like a comet, una estrella fugaz, that exploded at the same moment and all the little sparkles were our films that all just came out into the world at the same time,” Flores said. “It felt exciting and additive versus competitive because this is what we wanted, now we don’t have to do all these by ourselves, we can all make chingos of movies together.”

The movies listed by the Flores siblings have been referred to as the “Border New Wave.”And while these border-focused alternative narratives are certainly at the forefront of something new and exciting in film, they have also created space for filmmakers who defy categorization and don’t wish to engage in border narratives at all. 

Long before Trump elevated the border’s national profile, there was a slow-burning distaste among Latinos for being flattened into one monolithic group with a simplified storyline. Accurate representation is still lacking even 30 years after Selena, one of the first major Hollywood films to address the “in between” Tejano predicament. Emila Perez, for instance, just won Best Picture at the Golden Globes despite wide criticism that it misrepresents both the Latino and trans experience. Just when we thought we had overcome Penelope Cruz’s spicy hysterical Latina caricature in Blow (2001), Selena Gomez’s character in Emilia Perez strangely speaks an awkward Spanglish despite purportedly playing a Mexican narco wife. 

According to James Rodriguez, who founded the Austin nonprofit Saint Primo last year to empower Latinos in filmmaking, “If you look at the film industry as a whole, Latinos make up less than 6 percent in front of the camera, and less than 4 percent behind the camera, and we’re making [up] at least 30 percent of the population and growing.”

Traditionally, studios simply weren’t interested in nuanced Latino voices, which sometimes limited the subject matter that filmmakers were able to cover as they tried to pave their way in a competitive industry. “You’re trying to reach as big an audience as you can to be marketable because there just isn’t enough work right now,” said Paco Farias, an Eagle Pass native and screenwriter, citing a seismic shift after the writer and actor strikes in 2023 as streaming companies reevaluate their profit models. 

Farias wrote the screenplay for The Long Game, the true story of a Latino golf coach and his high school team trying to earn their way into playing at the segregated Del Rio Country Club. The movie depicts an older Latino generation of the 1950s, when near-total assimilation was the only way to get ahead. The same has gone for film, in which adhering to broad Hollywood narratives was necessary to compete. 

The recent shift in attitudes has been largely driven at the grassroots level by persistent pressure from filmmakers and advocacy groups. Many of these creatives have found community and support with organizations like the Laredo Film Society (LFS)—of which I am a board member—founded by Gabriela Treviño, Karen Gaytán, and Lizette Montiel in 2018. Treviño works for Borderlands Studios, which aims to improve Latino representation. She credits her filmmaking journey to inspiration from programs like a film camp for kids called Hecho en Encinal just north of Laredo, as well as mentorship by the camp’s director Marcela Moran, a film professor at Texas A&M International University whom many local filmmakers credit with their first introduction to film.

“I realized how many resources we actually have in Laredo compared to Encinal (population 500), where there’s not a university or even a high school,” Treviño said. Later, after an internship with the 40-year-old Austin Film Society, she used her experience to apply that nonprofit’s model to Laredo. 

Treviño and Gaytán are both members of a loose network of filmmakers dubbed the Bordertown Film Collective. Gaytán is currently directing a documentary about the boxer Jenny “Traviesa” Lozano, Laredo’s first-ever olympian who just competed in Paris, and she recently won an Emmy for producing the National Geographic documentary The Science Fair. Neither of these films are “border stories” per se.

“I hope my work shows that culture transcends borders and that these arbitrary lines create such harmful policies,” said Gaytán. “I don’t think even people from the border realize how the ‘border problem’ impacts our way of life,” she added, noting how the crisis narrative detracts from real problems like water insecurity and some of the highest incidences of health problems like Alzheimer’s and diabetes. 

Farther downriver, in Harlingen, the Entre Film Center is on a similar mission. In addition to community screenings and workshops, Entre recently launched Boca Chica Corazón Grande, which is documenting memories of the local beach under imminent threat from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. 

Fred Elmes (left) and Alfonso Gomez-Rejon in Laredo at a cinematography master class in June 2023 (Courtesy/Jessica Rodriguez)

Andres Sanchez, who runs Entre along with C. Diaz and Monica Sosa (all hailing from different parts of the Rio Grande Valley), cites Entre’s mantra: “A post-border world is possible.” He explained the collective’s mission as prioritizing joy. “If you’re thinking about revolution, you work all day, and then you play a little bit. We want to be a space for people to play.” 

There’s no doubt that Texas fronterizos have the talent and drive to tell their own stories.But film, in particular, requires significant investment and personnel, not to mention a distribution apparatus to make sure the work is actually seen.

Each person interviewed for this article cited a continuing lack of infrastructure that impedes film projects along the border. While these issues are prevalent across the entire state, they are acutely felt in South Texas. 

Gomez-Rejon referenced Texas’s uncompetitive rebates and incentives, known as “soft money,” which causes the state to lose projects to neighboring New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Mexico. “I keep pushing Texas. … I have two films that I want to shoot in Texas and they immediately want to move it to New Mexico or Mexico City because it’s cheaper and there’s more of a rebate,” he said. 

Texas recently spent a historic amount on its film rebate program, $200 million for the last biennium, yet is still losing projects to other states. During a legislative hearing last year, Texas film professionals including Taylor Sheridan and Dennis Quaid urged lawmakers to make the program more competitive. Sheridan noted that Hell or High Water, a modern cops-and-robbers western that could not be more in-your-face Texan, was shot in New Mexico. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick tasked the Senate Finance Committee to evaluate the costs and benefits of the program to see how it could be improved. 

In South Texas, filmmakers experience challenges in obtaining permits for locations and scouting for talent, something that local film commissions or Film Friendly state certifications can help with (currently, only a handful of cities have these designations south of San Antonio). Brownsville has the region’s only film commission, which helped facilitate the filming of A Night in Old Mexico (2013) starring Robert Duval. Though the movie was set in Mexico, it was shot in downtown Brownsville, another benefit of historic border towns for crews wary of filming in Mexico. 

As a testament to border improvisation, local groups are leading the charge in building the much-needed infrastructure. RR Cinematic, run by Laredo-based filmmakers Robert Ramirez and Robert Castañeda, recently partnered with LFS for a vampire-themed month of film, including a short film competition, reflecting Laredoans’ preference for horror over traditional border stories. RR just launched an acting workshop to support local productions, including their new feature in pre-production (which they describe to me as a horror musical). 

Last year, Gomez-Rejon brought down Fred Elmes, the cinematographer of David Lynch’s iconic Blue Velvet, for a master class that attracted a packed house at the Laredo Center for the Arts. 

“There was a kid that came up to me during the workshop, and he said something along the lines of, ‘I’m so surprised that Elmes would want to come to our hometown,’ as if they didn’t deserve that kind of access because of where we are,” Gomez-Rejon said. “My response is that this background is your secret weapon, this is what makes you unique, you deserve this, and you deserve a lot more.” 

The post The Texas Border Is the New Frontier of Film appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By ALEX VEIGA and MAE ANDERSON, Associated Press Business Writers

Shopping for a new home? Ready to renovate your kitchen or install a new deck? You’ll be paying more to do so.

The Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China — some already in place, others set to take effect in a few weeks — are already driving up the cost of building materials used in new residential construction and home remodeling projects.

The tariffs are projected to raise the costs that go into building a single-family home in the U.S. by $7,500 to $10,000, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Such costs are typically passed along to the homebuyer in the form of higher prices, which could hurt demand at a time when the U.S. housing market remains in a slump and many builders are having to offer buyers costly incentives to drum up sales.

We Buy Houses in San Francisco, which purchases foreclosed homes and then typically renovates and sells them, is increasing prices on its refurbished properties between 7% and 12%. That’s even after saving $52,000 in costs by stockpiling 62% more Canadian lumber than usual.

“The uncertainty of how long these tariffs will continue has been the most challenging aspect of our planning,” said CEO Mamta Saini.

Bad timing for builders

The timing of the tariffs couldn’t be worse for homebuilders and the home remodeling industry, as this is typically the busiest time of year for home sales. The prospect of a trade war has roiled the stock market and stoked worries about the economy, which could lead many would-be homebuyers to remain on the sidelines.

“Rising costs due to tariffs on imports will leave builders with few options,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “They can choose to pass higher costs along to consumers, which will mean higher home prices, or try to use less of these materials, which will mean smaller homes.”

FILE – A carpenter aligns a beam for a wall frame at a new house site in Madison County, Miss., Tuesday, March 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

Prices for building materials, including lumber, have been rising, even though the White House has delayed its tariffs rollout on some products. Lumber futures jumped to $658.71 per thousand board feet on March 4, reaching their highest level in more than two years.

The increase is already inflating costs for construction projects.

Dana Schnipper, a partner at building materials supplier JC Ryan in Farmingdale, New York, sourced wooden doors and frames for an apartment complex in Nassau County from a company in Canada that cost less than the American equivalent.

Half the job has already been supplied. But once the tariff goes into effect it will be applied to the remaining $75,000, adding $19,000 to the at-cost total. Once JC Ryan applies its mark up, that means the customer will owe $30,000 more than originally planned, Schnipper said.

FILE – A construction worker examines part of a building under construction in Brick, N.J. on July 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

He also expects the tariffs will give American manufacturers cover to raise prices on steel components.

“These prices will never come down,” Schnipper said. “Whatever is going to happen, these things will be sticky and hopefully we’re good enough as a small business, that we can absorb some of that. We can’t certainly absorb all of it, so I don’t know. It’s going to be an interesting couple of months.”

Sidestepping the tariffs by using an alternative to imported building materials isn’t always an option.

Bar Zakheim, owner of Better Place Design & Build, a contracting business in San Diego that specializes in building accessible dwelling units, or ADUs, said Canada remains the best source for lumber.

By sticking with imported lumber, Zakheim had to raise his prices about 15% compared with a year ago. He also has 8% fewer jobs lined up compared with last year.

“I’m not about to go out of business, but it’s looking to be a slow, expensive year for us,” he said.

Tariffs rollercoaster

On March 6, the Trump administration announced a one-month delay on its 25% tariffs on certain imports from Mexico and Canada, including softwood lumber. Tariffs of 20% on imports from China are already in effect. A 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports — 50% on those from Canada — kicked in on March 12.

Tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods slated to go into effect next month will raise the cost of imported construction materials by more than $3 billion, according to the NAHB. Those price hikes would be in addition to a 14.5% tariff on Canadian lumber previously imposed by the U.S., ratcheting up tariffs on Canadian lumber to 39.5%.

On Air Force One, President Donald Trump said he was pushing forward with his plans for tariffs on April 2 despite recent disruption in the stock market and nervousness about the economic impact.

“April 2 is a liberating day for our country,” he said. “We’re getting back some of the wealth that very, very foolish presidents gave away because they had no clue what they were doing.”

Building materials costs overall are already up 34% since December 2020, according to the NAHB.

Builders depend on raw materials, appliances and many other components produced abroad. About 7.3% of all products used in single-family home and apartment building construction are imported. Of those, nearly a quarter come from Canada and Mexico, according to the NAHB.

Both nations also account for 70% of the imports of two key home construction materials: lumber and gypsum. Canadian lumber is used in everything from framing to cabinetry and furniture. Mexican gypsum is used to make drywall.

Beyond raw materials, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and an array of other home components are manufactured in Mexico and China, which is also a key source of steel and aluminum.

The tariffs will mean higher prices for home improvement shoppers, said Dent Johnson, president of True Value Hardware, which operates more than 4,000 independently owned hardware stores.

“The reality is that many products on the shelves of your local hardware store will eventually be affected,” he said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

Chilling effect

Confusion over the timing and scope of the tariffs, and their impact on the economy, could have a bigger chilling effect on the new-home market than higher prices.

“If consumers can’t plan, if builders can’t plan, it gets very difficult to know how to price product because you don’t know what price you need to move it,” said Carl Reichardt, a homebuilding analyst at BTIG. “If people are worried about their jobs, worried about the future, it’s very difficult to make the decision to buy a new home, whatever the price.”

The uncertainty created by the Trump administration’s tariffs policy will probably result in increased volatility for home sales and new home construction this year, said Robert Dietz, the NAHB’s chief economist.

Still, because it can take several months for a home to be built, the larger impact of from building materials costs are going to happen “down the road,” Dietz said.

The impact tariffs are having on consumers is already evident at Slutsky Lumber in Ellenville, N.Y.

“There are not as many people getting ready for spring like they usually are,” said co-owner Jonathan Falcon. “It seems like people are just cutting back on spending.”

Falcon also worries that smaller businesses like his will have a tough time absorbing the impact of the tariffs.

“This is just like another thing that’s going to be harder for small lumber yards to handle than the big guys and just sort of keep driving businesses like us to not make it,” he said.

-__

Reporter Anne D’Innocenzio contributed.

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States under President Donald Trump has launched a new campaign of intense airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

This weekend’s strikes killed at least 53 people, including children, and wounded others. The campaign is likely to continue, part of a wider pressure campaign by Trump now targeting the Houthis’ main benefactor, Iran, as well.

Here’s what to know about the U.S. strikes and what could happen next:

Why did the U.S. launch the new airstrikes?

The Houthi rebels attacked over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, from November 2023 until January this year. Their leadership described the attacks as aiming to end the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The campaign also greatly raised the Houthis’ profile in the wider Arab world and tamped down on public criticism against their human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent and aid workers.

Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

Trump, writing on his social media platform Truth Social, said his administration targeted the Houthis over their “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism.” He noted the disruption Houthi attacks have caused through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, key waterways for energy and cargo shipments between Asia and Europe through Egypt’s Suez Canal.

“We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Trump said.

Didn’t the U.S. already target the Houthis with airstrikes?

Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. and the United Kingdom began a series of airstrikes against the Houthis starting in January 2024. A December report by The International Institute for Strategic Studies said the U.S. and its partners struck the Houthis over 260 times up to that point.

U.S. military officials during that period acknowledged having a far-wider target list for possible strikes. While the Biden administration didn’t go too far into explaining its targeting, analysts believe officials largely were trying to avoid civilian casualties and not rekindle Yemen’s stalemated war, which pits the Houthis and their allies against the country’s exiled government and their local and international allies, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Trump administration, however, appears willing to go after more targets, based on the weekend’s strikes and public remarks made by officials.

“We’re doing the entire world a favor by getting rid of these guys and their ability to strike global shipping,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday. “That’s the mission here, and it will continue until that’s carried out.”

Rubio added: “Some of the key people involved in those missile launches are no longer with us, and I can tell you that some of the facilities that they used are no longer existing, and that will continue.”

Israel also launched its own airstrikes on Houthi-held sites, including the port city of Hodeida, over the rebels’ missile and drone attacks targeting Israel.

What could the new U.S. strikes mean for the wider Mideast?

In two words: More attacks.

The Houthis said last week they’ll again target “Israeli” ships traveling through Mideast waterways like the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, because of Israel’s blocking of aid to the Gaza Strip. No rebel attack targeting commercial shipping has been reported as of Monday morning.

However, the new U.S. campaign likely could inspire Houthi attacks at sea or on land beyond American warships. The rebels previously targeted oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two countries deeply involved in Yemen’s war since 2015.

“Although the U.S. has been striking at Houthi targets for over a year, the scope and scale of this new campaign, including the targeting of senior Houthi figures, marks a significant escalation in the conflict,” analysts at the Eurasia Group said Monday.

Gulf Arab countries “will distance themselves from ongoing hostilities but now face threats to their major oil infrastructure. The Houthis will want to hit President Donald Trump where it hurts, oil prices.”

Meanwhile, the Houthis likely will expand their possible targets for ship attacks, meaning shippers will continue to stay out of the region, said Jakob P. Larsen, the head of maritime security for BIMCO, the largest international association representing shipowners.

Where are the Iranians in all of this?

Iran long has armed the Houthis, who are members of Islam’s minority Shiite Zaydi sect, which ruled Yemen for 1,000 years until 1962. Tehran routinely denies arming the rebels, despite physical evidence, numerous seizures and experts tying the weapons back to Iran. That’s likely because Tehran wants to avoid sanctions for violating a United Nations arms embargo on the Houthis.

The Houthis now form the strongest group within Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance.” Others like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have been decimated by Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that sparked Israel’s war of attrition in the Gaza Strip. Allied Shiite militias in Iraq largely have kept their heads down since the U.S. launched retaliatory attacks last year over a drone attack that killed three American troops and injured at least 34 others at a military base in Jordan.

While Iranian state television aired footage of civilian casualties from the weekend strikes in Yemen, top political leaders stayed away from suggestion Tehran itself would get involved in the fight. Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami notably underscored the Houthis made their own decisions — while not offering any warning over what would happen if the strikes killed any members of the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force, who are believed to actively support the rebels on the ground.

“We have always declared — and we declare again today — that the Yemenis are an independent and free nation in their own land, with an independent national policy,” Salami said.

Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz, speaking to ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, warned Guard officials training the Houthis “will be on the table too” as possible targets for attack.

Meanwhile, Iran is still trying to determine how to respond to a letter from Trump aiming to restart negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Monday officials continue to review the letter and will respond “after investigations are completed.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately traveled Sunday to Oman, which long has been an interlocutor between Tehran and the West. The Houthis also operate a political office in the sultanate.

The attacks on the Houthis are “a not-so-subtle signal to Iran, as President Trump has been unequivocal in his insistence that Iran return to the negotiating table to deal with its nuclear program,” the New York-based Soufan Center said in an analysis Monday.

NEW YORK (AP) — St. Patrick’s Day, the annual celebration of all things Irish, is being marked in cities across the country on Monday with boisterous parades and celebrations.

New York City hosts one of the largest and oldest parades in the United States.

The rolling celebration, now in its 264th year, takes place along Manhattan’s famed Fifth Avenue. Some 150,000 take part in the march, according to organizers.

Major celebrations are also planned on Monday in Savannah, Georgia, and other American communities, though some of the cities most transformed by Irish immigration held festivities over the weekend.

Chicago ‘s St. Patrick’s Day celebration, which is punctuated by turning its namesake river bright green with dye, happened Saturday. Boston and Philadelphia marked the occasion Sunday.

Across the pond, the Irish capital of Dublin culminates its three-day festival with a parade Monday. Cities such as Liverpool, England, another city transformed by Irish immigration, also host celebrations on the St. Patrick’s feast day.

The parades are meant to commemorate Ireland’s patron saint but have become a celebration of Irish heritage globally.

Festivities on March 17 were popularized by Irish immigrant communities, who in the 19th century faced discrimination and opposition in the U.S.

The New York parade dates to 1762 — 14 years before the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

It steps off at 11 a.m., heading north along Fifth Avenue and running from East 44th Street to East 79th Street in Manhattan.

A bevy of local politicians, from the mayor to the governor, are expected to walk the route along with school marching bands and traditional Irish pipe and drum ensembles and delegations from the New York Police Department and other organizations.

The grand marshal of this year’s parade in New York City is Michael Benn, the longtime chairman of the Queens County St. Patrick’s Parade held in Rockaway Beach.