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Trump says direct US-Lebanon flights could resume for first time in more than 40 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’ll allow American carriers to resume direct flights to Lebanon more than 40 years after the US suspended the route. Direct flights between the U.S. and Lebanon were suspended in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan’s administration following the hijacking of TWA Flight 847. “I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” Trump said in a social media post after meeting earlier on Tuesday with Lebanese President ...

Today in History

On July 22, 1933, aviator Wiley Post landed at Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world in 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes. Also on this date: In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln presented to his Cabinet a preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1934, bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater, where he had just seen the Clark Gable movie “Manhattan Melodrama.” In 1937, the U.S. Senate rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to add more justices ...

Hegseth estimates Iran war has cost $37.5B as he defends funding request

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced questions and protests Tuesday over the U.S. war with Iran, which he estimated has cost $37.5 billion so far, as Republicans prepare a $95 billion GOP budget package to fund the military, along with other White House priorities. Hegseth provided the new estimate, up from earlier assessments, during a fiery hearing at the Senate Appropriations Committee. Several times, protesters interrupted Hegseth’s opening remarks, which came days after the Pentagon announced that three more American service members have died in the conflict, ...

Andy Burnham becomes the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade after Starmer resigns

LONDON (AP) — Andy Burnham took office Monday as Britain’s new prime minister, promising a 10-year plan to restore political stability and revive the economy while acknowledging that six other U.K. leaders have tried and failed to do so in the past decade. Speaking outside 10 Downing St. minutes after being formally appointed by King Charles III, Burnham pledged to ease the cost of living for ordinary people, decentralize political power, revitalize industry and end street sleeping by homeless people. He said he would deliver a “circuit breaker” for a system that has taken ...

EU hits AliExpress with a record 550 million-euro fine over unsafe and counterfeit goods

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The European Commission on Monday fined Chinese online marketplace AliExpress 550 million euros ($629 million) for failing to adequately crack down on the sale of unsafe and counterfeit products on its site. The fine, the biggest ever imposed for breaches of the 27-nation European Union’s Digital Services Act, comes just months after another online retailer, Temu, was fined 200 million euros for similar breaches. Last year, Brussels issued a $120 million penalty for Elon Musk’s social media site X. “The spread of counterfeit clothing, unsafe ...

Pamela Smart, serving life, seeks a new trial as a New Hampshire judge weighs her latest petition

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Lawyers for Pamela Smart, who’s serving life in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband by her teenage student in 1990, hope that a New Hampshire judge will allow her latest petition for a new trial to move forward. The judge took the matter under advisement Monday after hearing a motion by the state to dismiss it. He planned to rule in 30 to 60 days. Smart’s trial was one of the first in the nation to be broadcast live on television from start to finish. She was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a ...