19 Oct 2023

US Navy warship in Red Sea intercepts three missiles, several drones heading north out of Yemen

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By TARA COPP and LOLITA C. BALDOR (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Navy warship on Thursday took out three missiles and several drones that had been fired from Yemen and were heading north, the Pentagon said.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Thursday that the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen. He said they were shot down over the water.

“We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel,” Ryder said in a Pentagon briefing. A U.S. official said they do not believe the missiles were aimed at the ship. That official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations that had not yet been announced.

Ryder said the missiles were shot down because they “posed a potential threat” based on their flight profile, adding that the U.S. is prepared to do whatever is needed “to protect our partners and our interests in this important region.” He said the U.S. is still assessing what the target was.

He said no U.S. forces or civilians on the ground were injured.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, in Yemen’s Sanaa, which is held by the Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels’ slogan long has been, “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.”

Last week, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the rebel group’s leader, warned the United States against intervening in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

When approached Thursday, two Houthi officials declined to comment on the incident. One said he was unaware of the incident, while the second said he did not have the authority to speak about it.

Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery contributed to this report from Cairo.

19 Oct 2023

How Craig Breslow became a top candidate for Red Sox GM job

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Since news began trickling out about the Red Sox search for a new head of baseball operations, one of the more intriguing names bandied about has been Craig Breslow.

The former Red Sox pitcher and current Chicago Cubs assistant general manager and senior vice president of pitching is reportedly among a handful of candidates known to have interviewed for the job, and on Wednesday night Patrick Mooney of The Athletic reported that Breslow is in advanced discussions to join Boston’s front office.

Whether those discussions ultimately bear fruit remains to be seen, and it’s not clear if Breslow would immediately ascend to the top job or slot in as the No. 2 under a new president of baseball operations. Either way, the 43-year-old Breslow appears to have a real shot.

That might seem surprising for some, especially fans who feel like Breslow was pitching out of the Red Sox bullpen just yesterday, but the lefty has always been regarded as one of the most intelligent people in the game. Once he made the jump to the front office ranks he quickly established himself as a rising star, and whether it’s in Boston, Chicago or someplace else it’s clear he has a bright future ahead of him.

Rave reviews

Breslow pitched for 12 seasons in the big leagues as a left-handed reliever between 2005-17, including five with the Red Sox. His best season came in 2013, when he was a key member of Boston’s World Series championship squad and posted a 1.81 ERA over 59.2 innings and 61 appearances.

Following his retirement Breslow was recruited by Theo Epstein to join the Cubs front office, and since starting in 2019 he’s become deeply involved in the organization’s efforts to overhaul its pitching development program. He was elevated to director of pitching and later to his current assistant GM role, and where the Cubs previously struggled to develop homegrown arms Breslow’s efforts have produced a wave of talented pitchers who are already making an impact in the majors.

Look no further than the strides made this year by Cy Young contender Justin Steele and by 2021 first-round pick Jordan Wicks. For an organization like Boston that has struggled to consistently develop high-end pitching talent, Breslow’s track record has obvious appeal.

Right place, right time

One common refrain we’ve heard throughout the search process is that potential targets have declined to pursue the Red Sox job due to family considerations.

In Breslow’s case, the family element might actually work in Boston’s favor.

Originally from Connecticut, Breslow has deep ties to New England and still lives a short drive from Fenway Park. The Yale graduate has often worked remotely from his home in Newton since joining the Cubs front office, so while many candidates have balked at uprooting their families to come to Boston, Breslow’s circumstances would make the role uniquely appealing.

Breslow also has familiarity with most of the front office dating back to his playing days and presumably a good understanding of how the organization currently functions. If Breslow is hired, that familiarity could help him hit the ground running and implement the changes he feels will help the Red Sox unlock their potential.

Worth the risk?

The downside to Breslow’s candidacy is even compared to many other recently retired players who have successfully transitioned to the front office world, he is very inexperienced. Breslow is not the Cubs top decision-maker or even it’s No. 2 man, and so far he’s thrived in a comparatively narrow role with fewer responsibilities related to executing transactions, negotiating contracts and running a baseball operations department as a whole.

That being said, Breslow would inherit a well-established front office infrastructure including executive vice president of baseball operations Brian O’Halloran and the trio of assistant GMs Eddie Romero, Raquel Ferreira and Michael Groopman to help handle all of those things. Alternatively, the Red Sox could elevate Romero or hire another outside candidate as president of baseball operations and install Breslow as GM, which would still represent a big promotion from his current job in Chicago.

You also don’t have to look hard for proof someone with Breslow’s background can thrive in the big chair.

Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young, also an Ivy League graduate and a recently retired MLB pitcher, was only 41 when he was hired in late 2020. Under his leadership the Rangers have aggressively surrounded their homegrown core with high-end outside talent, and now Texas is back in the ALCS for the first time since 2011.

One area where Young has excelled, and where former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom often drew criticism, is the ability to keep his finger on the pulse of the clubhouse. The past couple summers Red Sox players often expressed frustration over the team’s relative inactivity at the trade deadline, which may have contributed to the club’s second half swoons.

Young, a former player, understood that waiting for the club to get healthy would send the wrong message and swung several big deals that helped keep the Rangers afloat. Breslow also understands those clubhouse dynamics, and having already won a World Series title here he might be better equipped than most to navigate life as Boston’s baseball boss.

If nothing else Breslow’s already done enough to warrant serious consideration, now it will be fascinating to see if the Red Sox ultimately hand him the ball.

19 Oct 2023

Opinion | Jim Jordan’s Humiliating Defeat Isn’t Worth Celebrating

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In the classic film “Modern Times,” Charlie Chaplain tried to impress a woman by roller-skating while blindfolded. Again and again, the unwitting Chaplain skates perilously close to a cavernous hole. Only by happenstance does he avoid a fatal plunge.

Keep this image in mind if you’re tempted to send up a cheer or a sigh of relief that Jim Jordan has — for now — been denied the speakership of the House. If it’s a cause for celebration, it should be decidedly muted, because it’s another example of just how close America has repeatedly come to an all-out political catastrophe. It’s also a reminder that the more close calls there are, the more likely it is that at some point, the worst will indeed happen.

What we have witnessed over the past few days is less the triumph of a sensible, centrist-conservative, institutionally loyal contingent of House members, and more the unsettling fact that 200 lawmakers were willing to place outsize power in the hands of an insurrectionist who, as Liz Cheney noted, was closer to Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election than any other House member. Yes, the “squishes” held firm, and kudos to them for defying the worst of their reputations. But what should have been a blatantly disqualifying record was largely treated as either irrelevant, or a mark of loyalty to the dominant figure in the Republican Party.

But perhaps we should not be surprised; that near-willingness to install Jordan two heartbeats from the Oval Office is just the latest example of a perilously close call that would have put our political system in serious jeopardy.

In 2020, a shift of 44,000 votes in three states would have resulted in an electoral tie, throwing the presidential race into the House of Representatives, where the arcane rules would have very likely led to a Trump reelection despite his clear popular vote loss.

On Jan. 6, a majority of House Republicans voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s election win. And within a few days or weeks, the base of the GOP — and a thumping majority of its elected officials — had come to terms with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and remain in power by whatever means might work. But for the courage of local GOP officials in state legislatures and agencies, that effort might well have succeeded.

The 2022 midterms did not produce a red wave and some of the more zealous election deniers — Kari Lake in Arizona, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania — were defeated. But hundreds of election deniers won or were returned to seats in state legislatures and the U.S. House. Just as significant, Trump loyalists have won posts on canvassing boards, as election registrars, as county officials with significant power to judge the validity of votes. While new federal legislation makes it harder for Congress to reject certified electoral votes, the picture back at the grassroots is different: The potential for suppressing or rejecting valid votes may now be greater than it was in 2020.

All of this takes place in a political universe that would have seemed beyond belief little more than a decade ago. A presidential candidate indicted for multiple felonies, and found liable for sexual abuse and of having defrauded banks and insurers, would not be the overwhelming favorite to win his party’s nomination, let alone having an even or better chance of winning the White House, if current polls can be believed.

A major political party would not have embraced funhouse fantasies of electoral fraud, or joined in efforts to harass local prosecutors for pursuing credible criminal and civil cases. Nor would it have come this close to choosing a speaker of the House who willingly put our core political premise — the willingness to accept a peaceful transfer of power — at risk.

If Jordan isn’t ultimately able to seize power, another Trumpist is still likely to be handed the speaker’s gavel whenever this embarrassing chaos comes to an end. A new push to empower Rep. Patrick McHenry as acting speaker has already run aground amid a conservative backlash. Anything resembling bipartisan governance or deal-making with Democrats would not do.

Charlie Chaplin was never in any real danger —it was a triumph of special effects. The abyss we have repeatedly come close to is no illusion at all. And we cannot keep nearing that abyss without the real risk that sooner or later, we will slip over the edge.

19 Oct 2023

Medway family desperately awaiting Gaza escape route after Biden announces aid deal

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A lawyer for a family of American citizens from Medway trapped in Gaza near a crossing with Egypt said they are still desperately awaiting word on whether they can escape the gruesome warzone even as airstrikes pounded buildings Thursday morning near where they were staying.

Attorney Sammy Nabulsi, who represents Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their 1-year-old son, Yousef, said the family is stranded near the Rafah Crossing, a border checkpoint in Southern Gaza with Egypt, and is running out of food and water. The family traveled to Gaza for a two-week trip to visit Abuzayda’s parents, Nabulsi said.

Airstrikes have hit the area in recent days, Nabulsi said, including one Thursday that struck buildings just over 100 yards from where the family is sheltering. In a message sent on WhatsApp, Okal told Nabulsi that “windows shattered and walls cracked.”

“My son was sleeping under a window. (Wafaa) had to snatch him out in fear of glass falling on him,” Okal said in a message sent to Nabulsi just after 7 a.m. Thursday that was shared with the Herald. “We’re ok, kids are crying so trying to calm them down. About 100 meters away. Close enough the walls of the house cracked.”

An image of the airstrike’s aftermath shows a plum of gray smoke rising over a mass of buildings near the City of Rafah, Gaza. Nabulsi said this is the closest the family has been to an airstrike after Okal witnessed one Tuesday while traveling to a nearby town to find milk for his son.

“What’s become clear is even Southern Gaza and the town of Rafah, which is where they are currently located hoping and waiting to cross into Egypt, is also unsafe,” said Nabulsi, a Boston-based lawyer with Rose Law Partners. “I’m particularly worried about airstrikes in the south because that’s presumably where all the other American citizens who wish to exit Gaza into Egypt are currently located.”

United States officials estimate 500 to 600 American citizens are trapped in Gaza without a way to exit as the number of deaths from a war with Israel continues to rage less than two weeks after Hamas militants stormed into Israel and killed civilians in a brutal terrorist attack.

Israeli airstrikes continued Thursday across the entirety of Gaza, including in the south where Israel declared “safe zones.” More than 1 million Palestinians, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled homes in the north and Gaza City after Israel told residents to evacuate the north in advance of an expected ground assault.

The death toll is mounting on both sides.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that nearly 3,800 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 were wounded. More than 1,400 people in Israel were dead, most from the initial attack by Hamas, and hundreds were taken hostage.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday that limited humanitarian aid could flow into Gaza from Egypt following a request from President Joe Biden. But it is unclear if any U.S. citizens will be able to flee Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, where United Nations flags are expected to be raised to protect trucks carrying aid supplies.

Nabulsi said the Medway family received messages Wednesday that the border between Gaza and Egypt would open for Americans to flee.

But only a few hours later, Nabulsi said he heard from U.S. officials that the limited aid deal “does not include any provision for the confirmed and safe departure of any American citizen in Gaza.”

“I asked myself this question like what on earth can I do next? Because I’m just getting to the point where I feel like I’m sitting here banging my head on a table saying like, these people are about to die and no one seems to do anything about it,” Nabulsi said in an interview.

Nabusli said he has been in touch with the U.S. Department of State, White House, and the offices of U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, Seth Moutlon, and Jim McGovern.

The family is a constituent of McGovern so any case work would fall to his office. A spokesperson for McGovern did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Markey, Warren, and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen penned a Tuesday letter to the White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging federal officials “to do everything possible to provide assistance to U.S. citizens fleeing the Gaza Strip, including our constituents from New England.”

“We are also concerned that our offices have received requests from multiple families from New England who are seeking assistance. These families are terrified for their lives and growing more frustrated as promises of escape through the opening of the Rafah Crossing remain unfulfilled,” the trio wrote, specifically pointing to the Medway family.

Nabulsi said he also wants to see more involvement from Gov. Maura Healey as the state’s federal delegation continues to push the White House and State Department for help.

“That advocacy needs to include her,” he said. “Everybody at every level of government needs to put their pencils down, and they should be doing nothing other than focusing on bringing all of these American citizens home safely, immediately.”

At an unrelated press conference Thursday, Healey said she was aware of the Medway family’s situation, calling it “heartbreaking.”

“I know that our senators have already been in touch with the State Department. There’s been a considerable amount of advocacy on their behalf, but it is a heartbreaking situation for them, for so many,” Healey told reporters.

Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.