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Category: Associated Press

  • A government-commissioned study found drinking risks. U.S. guidelines didn’t feature its findings

    A study commissioned by President Joe Biden’s administration to investigate alcohol-related health harms was released independently on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to feature the researchers’ findings in new dietary guidelines as it faced pushback from the alcohol industry and a congressional committee.

    The findings of the study, in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, were in line with years of research, saying that health risks go up with just one drink a day and no level of alcohol has a protective effect on mortality. Even levels considered “moderate” raise the risk of premature death and more than 200 diseases, including heart disease and cancer, researchers found.

    The new study was one of two government reviews meant to help inform the new dietary guidelines. Released earlier this year, the guidelines advised consuming “less alcohol for better overall health.” The authors of the independently released study say that didn’t provide detailed practical advice about the risks of drinking.

    One of the officials involved in the study commissioned by Biden’s Democratic administration accused Trump’s Republican administration of “sidelining” the research — an allegation the Trump administration denies.

    Robert Vincent, a former Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration alcohol policy official who led the yearslong effort, made the accusations in an editorial published alongside the study. Vincent was laid off last year as part of a government reduction in force.

    “The challenges confronting alcohol policy today are not rooted in scientific uncertainty,” Vincent wrote. “What remains contested is whether evidence will meaningfully inform policy when it conflicts with commercial interests.”

    The dispute over the study underscored the increasingly tense relations between the medical and scientific community and the Trump administration, which has questioned or ignored longstanding science in its policymaking, fired a slew of veteran scientists from the federal workforce, and cut scientific grants that proponents say help keep the U.S. at the forefront of medical innovation.

    Industry and congressional Republicans pushed back

    After the study’s researchers released a draft report last year, the alcohol industry mobilized against it, launching campaigns to discredit its work. The House oversight committee also criticized the study, releasing a report earlier this year that called it “fraught with bias” and accused the study authors of having predetermined conclusions based on their past research and affiliations.

    Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, denied any notion that the study wasn’t considered.

    HHS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture “reviewed the study alongside the broader body of available scientific evidence and followed the established process for developing the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” she said. “The Guidelines are informed by the totality of the scientific record, not any single report or analysis.”

    Vincent told the Associated Press in an interview that the researchers were thoroughly vetted for conflicts and the findings were scientifically sound. He said that while he was in the Trump administration, he was “asked to kill the study” but did not. HHS didn’t immediately respond to that claim. The department said the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration wasn’t involved in the review or the clearance of the study for publication.

    Amanda Berger, senior vice president of science and research for the alcohol trade association the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said in an email to the AP that the congressional committee’s findings showed the study was “irretrievably flawed.”

    Findings support more forceful alcohol intake recommendation

    The Trump administration earlier this year released new dietary guidelines that advised consuming “less alcohol for better overall health.” The researchers said that they don’t dispute that advice but that their findings support a more detailed and forceful recommendation that current adult drinkers consume one drink or fewer a day.

    “I’m glad that they had a message that corresponds with our science, and that is that less is best,” said Timothy Naimi, director of the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and one of the study’s authors. “But giving people quantity information is necessary to make a truly informative guideline.”

    The study differed from the other research commissioned by the government to help inform the dietary guidelines on the issue, which said moderate alcohol use was associated with a decreased risk of mortality from all causes but also an increased risk of some diseases.

    Priscilla Martinez-Matyszczyk, one of the authors of the new study and a deputy scientific director at the Public Health Institute’s Alcohol Research Group, said their study didn’t look at mortality from all causes but instead examined mortality specifically attributed to alcohol to avoid confounding factors.

    Martinez-Matyszczyk also addressed an issue raised by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz in his explanations of the new guidelines: that drinking is “a social lubricant that brings people together” and that even though not drinking is preferred, being social has health benefits.

    “I don’t know of any studies that have teased out the social effect from the health effect,” she said.

    Research aligns with other recent findings

    The new findings are “in line with the latest science that basically shows less is better when it comes to health,” Naimi said.

    For example, a 2019 study in Lancet found that moderate drinking slightly raised the risk of stroke and high blood pressure and offered no protective effects on health.

    Moderate drinking was once thought to have benefits for the heart, but better research methods have thrown cold water on that idea. Older studies compared groups of people by how much they drink instead of randomly assigning people to drink or not, so they couldn’t prove cause and effect. When researchers adjusted for things like education levels, income, and healthcare access, the benefits tended to disappear.

    About half of Americans age 12 or older had a drink in the past month, researchers said, making it the most commonly used addictive substance in the U.S. One drink is the equivalent of about one 12-ounce can of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a shot of liquor.

  • European leaders voice ‘urgent need’ to bolster Ukraine’s defenses against ballistic missiles

    LONDON — The leaders of the U.K., Ukraine, France, and Germany discussed the “urgent need” to ramp up production of weapons to combat Russia’s powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missiles in a meeting in London on Sunday.

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at 10 Downing Street.

    In a statement released by Starmer’s office following their evening meeting, the leaders condemned Russia’s “large-scale missile and drone attacks — including the repeated use of the Oreshnik missiles — on Ukrainian cities with a tragic toll on civilians.” They also condemned Russia’s “irresponsible and dangerous Russian drone incursions” into NATO territory, including last month’s in Romania.

    Russia has stepped up its aerial campaign against Ukraine recently, most notably with the launch of the Oreshnik missiles.

    “The leaders underlined the urgent need to scale up the production of interceptors and co-develop anti-ballistic missile and deep strike capabilities,” the leaders said.

    No details, financial or otherwise, on how this would be done were provided.

    Ukraine’s shortage of air defense systems, in part because of the depletion of U.S. stocks during the Iran war, has left civilians especially vulnerable to ballistic missiles, even as Kyiv’s defenses stop most of Moscow’s drones and its forces have made advances elsewhere on the battlefield.

    The worry for Ukrainians is that the Iran war, which has been in abeyance for weeks, may now reignite after Iran launched missiles on Sunday at Israel in the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, complicating mediation efforts for a deal to end the war.

    Following their meeting in London, the European leaders called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to “an immediate and complete ceasefire” with the current line of contact as a starting point for any negotiations.

    The U.K., France, and Germany, the so-called E3 group of European nations, have been prominent backers of Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The U.K. and France lead the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process.

    The meeting comes in the wake of a Russian drone strike that killed three people waiting at a bus stop in southeastern Ukraine. A separate drone strike damaged a storage center for spent nuclear fuel in the Kyiv region, just 9 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s General Staff said. The attack sparked a fire that was extinguished within an hour. Radiation remains within safe levels, officials said.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said the incident was “deeply concerning” due to the large amounts of nuclear material held at the facility. He said in a statement that the agency would visit the site of the attack soon.

    The Russian attacks follow a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Saturday that targeted Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, underscoring Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia.

    With the front line barely moving as swarms of drones hinder advances, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range strikes.

  • Republican senators warn surveillance program may lapse after Trump intel pick backlash

    WASHINGTON — Republicans are warning the White House that a critical surveillance authority is likely to lapse this week amid bipartisan backlash over President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s intelligence community.

    Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sounded the alarm over the weekend after a failed procedural vote to extend the program.

    The senators in a letter urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare “for a potential significant gap in foreign intelligence collection” if the authority expires. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, set to lapse June 12, allows agencies including the CIA, National Security Agency, and FBI to collect communications from foreign targets overseas without a warrant.

    “We have a deadline ahead of us. We need Democrat votes,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday.

    Efforts to secure a long-term extension of the program already faced hurdles because of bipartisan concerns that the program can incidentally collect Americans’ communications. Privacy advocates and some lawmakers have been pushing to create a new warrant requirement before those communications can be searched.

    Senate leaders from both parties appeared to be nearing agreement on a long-term extension. But the effort collapsed after Trump selected federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte to serve as acting director of national intelligence.

    “Why the president would throw this live hand grenade of Bill Pulte in 10 days before this is due to expire, I’m not sure,” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s This Week.

    Pulte pick upends bipartisan deal

    Early Friday morning, after senators spent the night debating separate immigration legislation, seven Republicans joined nearly all Democrats in blocking a long-term extension of the surveillance authority.

    Democrats and several Republicans registered their opposition to Trump’s selection of Pulte, arguing the federal housing finance regulator lacks the experience needed to oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies.

    “The naming of Pulte to that position, although the timing arguably wasn’t the best, I still don’t think it ought to derail something that’s this important,” Thune said Friday.

    Thune has expressed concern over Pulte’s pick, saying the nation’s top intelligence post should not be “weaponized” and that the job should be filled by “professionals.” Cotton, who rarely strays from supporting Trump and is a leading advocate for the surveillance authority, declined to endorse Pulte, saying only that he had “no observations on the matter.”

    “He’s not qualified for the long-term position,” Republican Sen. James Lankford, another member of the Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Sunday. “That’s been clear on this. He has no national security background.”

    Both Republican and Democratic senators skeptical of Pulte pointed to his record at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In the role, he’s been linked with criminal referrals over allegations of mortgage fraud by public officials Trump sought to punish, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat; Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.); and Lisa Cook, a board member of the Federal Reserve.

    Republicans will need to garner some Democratic support to pass any extension of the surveillance authority in the Senate, and likely the House as well. But a breakthrough appears difficult so long as Pulte remains in the position, which Trump said last week would only be temporary.

    “Clearly to get to good-faith negotiations the effort to elevate Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence should be reversed. Immediately,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

    A key surveillance tool

    The current reauthorization debate is hardly the first time that lawmakers have grappled with the fate of the surveillance program, particularly after a flurry of revelations about government misuse of the vast trove of intelligence it collects.

    The topic in recent years has scrambled predictable partisan alliances, with Democratic critics of the Trump administration uniting with skeptics of government power on the right in voicing concerns about Section 702’s renewal.

    In 2024, for instance, those divisions nearly caused the program to lapse. The Senate barely missed its midnight deadline that year before approving by a 60-34 margin legislation to reauthorize Section 702 that was subsequently signed by then-President Joe Biden.

    A spokesperson at the Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment Monday about the national security concerns that would be created if the program lapses. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred inquiries to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    “America faces real threats from foreign adversaries, terrorists, cyber actors, and hostile intelligence services,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media Sunday. “Section 702 remains one of our nation’s most effective tools for identifying and disrupting those threats before they reach our shores.”

    Cotton and Grassley said they believed Democratic leaders would not support another short-term extension of the surveillance authority and urged Rubio to prepare contingency plans. They said Trump should consider an executive order to prevent a disruption in intelligence collection.

    Cotton and Warner had said they were close on a bipartisan deal on a long-term extension and could still move quickly should a change occur before Friday. Still, the bill would likely need to go through the House — and the two chambers so far have disagreed on a separate issue regarding central banking digital currency.

    Republicans leaders are already warning of the consequences if Congress fails to act.

    “If it goes dark, then it would be a calamitous situation for the country,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.

  • A flesh-eating cattle parasite spreads beyond Texas as new screwworm cases are found

    Two more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a pest that could potentially devastate the nation’s cattle industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

    The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. Females lay their eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets, and occasionally even humans can be infested. A government program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females had kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

    So far, there are four confirmed cases: three calves in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state. The animal’s travel history is being investigated.

    The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. The third was announced Monday in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio.

    Scientists expect a handful of new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn’t mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.

    “When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”

    The USDA and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an infestation since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. The annual warm-weather scourge of cattle ranchers had been eliminated in the U.S. in the 1960s.

    So far, its reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the U.S. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit. There are also a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.

    Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses, or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F, making them more of a summer problem up north.

    USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins was scheduled tol hold a news conference about the infestation Monday afternoon following a briefing at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.

    Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.

    The USDA is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a massive fly factory in Texas.

    However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry. Instead, he says, a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven to work and could poison other flies, animals, and even humans.

    “What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview Monday.

  • A 7.8 magnitude quake in the Philippines kills at least 35, collapses buildings, and sparks tsunami

    DAVAO, Philippines — An offshore earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit the southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 35 people, injuring more than 200 others mostly in ruined buildings, and sending a 3-foot tsunami into nearby coasts.

    Several mostly low-rise buildings collapsed or sustained heavy damages in the hard-hit city of General Santos. Tsunami damage was reported in at least one southern coastal village. Smaller waves were measured in Indonesia and Palau and as far away as southern Japan.

    The quake also triggered a landslide in Glan, a municipality in the province of Sarangani, that killed 13 villagers, Rene Punzalan, a provincial disaster-mitigation official, told the DZBB radio network. Four other villagers died in Sarangani, he said.

    The major earthquake was the strongest to hit the Philippines this year, Teresito Bacolcol, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said. He warned people to seek advice before returning to damaged buildings and houses, which could collapse due to aftershocks.

    The United States, a treaty ally of the Philippines, said it was coordinating with Manila and was ready to support Philippine response efforts. France, Japan, and New Zealand also expressed support.

    “Our pickup truck suddenly jerked and I thought we had a flat tire,” Rod Sosmeña, a regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, told the Associated Press from General Santos, where he was traveling when the quake struck at 7:37 a.m.

    “The shaking was very strong and people dashed out of houses into the streets,” Sosmeña said.

    Epicenter in sea off Mindanao

    More than 100 students in uniforms and a dozen teachers had gathered for a flag-raising ceremony in a coconut tree-ringed grade school compound in the rural town of Malita in Davao Occidental province when the ground shook, turning the first day of school after a two-month summer break into chaos.

    “Their excitement on the first day of school turned to trauma,” school principal Rosavel Cachuela told the AP.

    Some of the young students screamed in panic and wept but most remained seated and still, preventing any injuries, Cachuela said, adding that a motorcycle was damaged when a shed crumbled to the ground.

    At least four people remained missing in General Santos, a port city of more than 700,000 people and a regional hub for the tuna export industry. Search and rescue teams worked to find people who may have been trapped in a supermarket, a warehouse, a grade school, and other small buildings that either collapsed or were severely damaged, officials said.

    The international airport in General Santos was temporarily shut due to the earthquake and 17 domestic flights were canceled, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.

    The quake was centered at sea off Mindanao, the second most populous island in the Philippine archipelago. According to Bacolcol, the quake occurred at a depth of 20 miles, about 20 miles southwest of Maasim town in Sarangani province.

    Assessing damage and casualties

    President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the cancellation of classes and directed disaster-response agencies to immediately get to work in quake-hit provinces, saying, “The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind.”

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat of a tsunami largely passed about five hours after the quake. Philippine officials also lifted a tsunami warning by mid-afternoon. Six shanties on stilts were damaged in a coastal village in Zamboanga del Sur province due to the quake and taller waves, officials said.

    Aside from the landslide in Sarangani, most of the other deaths were caused by collapsing buildings and falling debris, including in a damaged mosque, in the southern provinces of South Cotabato and Davao Occidental, and on Balut Island, according to Sosmeña and another disaster-mitigation official, Ednar Dayanghirang.

    The DZRH radio network in Manila reported that a four-story commercial building where its provincial station was located partly collapsed and staffers dashed to the ground floor without injuries.

    Tsunami waves near 3 feet measured

    Waves of 3 feet were monitored in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani. A 4.6-foot wave hit at one time in Kiamba town, Bacolcol said.

    The quake was also felt in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Borneo island. Sabah is just a boat ride away from southern Philippines. A 2.7-foot tsunami was measured by a gauge off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, and the PTWC said 1-foot waves were measured in Palau.

    Waves up to 7.8 inches were detected on the remote Japanese island of Chichijima and the central Japanese town of Kushimoto, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

    The Philippines is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean.

    The archipelago is also battered by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

  • The Kennedy Center drops ‘Trump’ branding as Bill Maher’s Twain Award guests are revealed

    NEW YORK — John Mellencamp, Jay Leno, and Whitney Cummings will be among the guest speakers when Bill Maher receives the Mark Twain Award for American Humor during a June 28 ceremony at the Kennedy Center.

    The center disclosed the list Monday in an email sent to members, who were offered packages ranging from $99 for a seat reservation to $1,500 and more for seating and admission to pre- and post-show receptions. The announcement also marks a notable change in how the center is identifying itself: The news came from the Kennedy Center, not the “Trump Kennedy Center,” a switch that also appears on the center’s home page.

    Last month, a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s handpicked board of trustees had acted illegally when they voted to add Trump’s name to the venue, which Congress in 1964 named for the recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

    “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” wrote U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper.

    Although a Kennedy spokesperson suggested the venue might appeal the decision, the center received an email last week from its general counsel that laid out steps for cooperation, including the removal of Trump’s name.

    After mostly ignoring the Kennedy Center during his first term, Trump soon made the center a key part of his overall mission to purge federal cultural institutions of so-called “woke” influences. He ousted the leadership, filled the board of trustees with supporters, and presided over such signature events as the Kennedy Honors ceremony.

    In response, numerous performers canceled planned appearances at the center, including Issa Rae, Bela Fleck, and Renée Fleming.

    Maher is the 27th recipient of the Twain Award, which has previously been given to Leno, Steve Martin, and Tina Fey, among others. Trump and Maher have publicly feuded in recent years, but the HBO host is otherwise the kind of comedian that many Republicans have found palatable — a self-styled independent who regularly attacks Hollywood as “woke” and has interviewed everyone from liberal stalwarts like Jane Fonda to conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk to such “canceled” cultural figures as Woody Allen.

    Other guests expected at the Twain ceremony include the comedian Louis C.K., who has been touring regularly since allegations of sexual misconduct briefly upended his career after they were reported in 2017, and the controversial ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith, whose blunt comments on sports and beyond have led to fierce exchanges with NBA star Jaylen Brown and commentator Keith Olbermann, among others.

  • Israel says Iran launched missiles at it in first such bombardment since fragile ceasefire

    JERUSALEM — Iran launched missiles at Israel in the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, raising the possibility of a return to heavy fighting and complicating mediation efforts to end the war.

    Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed the launches, and Iran closed its western airspace to brace for a possible response. Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning earlier Sunday in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down. Israel said the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired at northern Israel earlier in the day.

    “Should these acts of aggression be repeated, the responses will be broader in scope and will encompass all American and Zionist targets throughout the region,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said in a statement that referenced attacks in Lebanon and on Iran’s coast and vessels around the Strait of Hormuz.

    Sirens sounded in several areas of Israel, sending millions running for shelter. Israel’s military said it intercepted the missiles, and multiple explosions were heard in the north. Less than an hour later, the military said people could leave areas reinforced against missile attacks.

    “Iran has made a grave mistake,” Israel military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said. The military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said it will “strike the enemy with determination as soon as the order is given.”

    But Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, said U.S. President Donald Trump told it that he doesn’t think Israel needs to respond further. And Trump told the Financial Times: “I call all the shots. He (Netanyahu) doesn’t call the shots.”

    U.S. official: Netanyahu to hold off attack ‘for the time being’

    A senior U.S. official said Trump had called Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate immediately for the Iranian missile attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private phone call, said that Trump believed he had convinced Netanyahu to wait.

    Trump “got Bibi to hold off for the time being,” the official said. The official would not offer any other details of the call, and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.

    Iran had warned that an attack on Beirut would renew full-scale war across the Mideast, even as Pakistan and other mediators try to restart talks between Tehran and Washington.

    “U.S. forces across the Middle East remain vigilant and ready,” the U.S. Central Command posted on X shortly before the missile launches. The U.S. Embassy in Israel later directed employees and family members to shelter in place.

    Israel’s attack on Beirut came a few days after the Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed to a ceasefire in U.S.-hosted talks, though Hezbollah rejected the deal. The strike on a residential building killed two people and wounded 20, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

    “The army will continue to act in all of Lebanon,” the Israel military spokesperson said.

    Israel’s strikes and ground invasion in Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, and the militant group’s resistance to disarming, have complicated an overall deal to end the war in the Middle East.

    Iran says any deal must include an end to fighting in Lebanon.

    Trump told a Fox News Channel reporter that he wanted the Iranians to stop firing missiles and return to the negotiating table. He also said that Israel’s strikes earlier Sunday were not coordinated with the U.S. and “I’m not happy about it.”

    Israel last week had announced it would strike the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, but urgent talks via Washington halted that on the condition that Hezbollah stop targeting Israeli border towns.

    Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for firing at Israel earlier Sunday, wants the direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to end. Instead, it supports Iran’s stance that an overall ceasefire deal between Tehran and Washington include the situation in Lebanon.

    Netanyahu, who seeks reelection later this year, is under heavy domestic pressure to respond to both Iran and the Hezbollah threat, which has paralyzed life for thousands of residents along Israel’s northern border.

    But Trump has made clear he does not want to see the war resume.

    Trump said earlier Sunday in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would like to see a “more surgical attack on Hezbollah.” He also said he was “not demanding” that Lebanon be part of an overall ceasefire deal in the Iran war.

    Iran continues to assert its grip on the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. continues its blockade of Iranian ports, with shipments of oil, natural gas and fertilizer affected and the global economy in pain.

    Iran since the ceasefire took effect has launched missiles and drones at Gulf nations and said it was targeting the U.S. military presence. After its launches against Israel, Iraq’s Civil Aviation Authority announced that the country’s airspace would close for 72 hours and Syria’s aviation authority announced a 12-hour airspace closure.

    All flights from Tehran’s main international airport were suspended, the civil aviation authority said, according to the official Mizan news agency.

    Diplomacy continues before and after missile launches

    Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, was in Tehran on Sunday delivering a message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei from Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. There were no details on the message’s contents.

    Khamenei has not been seen in public since he was named the Islamic Republic’s ruler after his father was killed on Feb. 28 as Israeli and U.S. strikes sparked the war.

    Pakistani authorities have said Islamabad, with support from regional countries including Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, is working to help bridge differences.

    In Cairo, the Egyptian and Qatari foreign ministers discussed “proposed elements” of a potential agreement between the U.S. and Iran, the Egyptian foreign ministry said, without details.

    And after Iran’s missile launches at Israel, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke with counterparts in France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Egypt and Turkey as well as Pakistan’s army chief, Iran’s state TV said.