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The $1 coin designed to celebrate America’s 250th birthday — and seemingly President Donald Trump, whose face gazes from one side of the gold finish — will go on sale Wednesday, according to the U.S. Mint.

The coin’s design — Trump’s visage as “heads” and the Great Seal of the United States as “tails” — received the stamp of approval this year from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members Trump appointed. In past comments, the president said that the idea to stamp his face on a coin was “very unusual” but that he was “honored by it.”

The president’s second term has brought several such brandings, or attempts at them, that have become tangled up in lawsuits. That includes moves to put Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace, as Trump works to leave his stamp on history and on Washington, D.C.

The coins, which can be used as legal tender, drew some criticism, particularly because of federal law that bars the depiction of a living president on U.S. currency. But in some circumstances, the Treasury Secretary does have authority to authorize the minting and issuance of special coins.

The coins were struck to “honor 250 years of great American heritage,” the U.S. Mint wrote on its website. In an arc above Trump’s face is written “LIBERTY,” and below is “1776 (tilde) 2026.” On the flip side is the Great Seal of the United States, with the bald eagle gripping arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. In a banner clutched in its beak is written “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” Latin for ”out of many, one.”

A roll of 25 coins will cost $61, and a bag of 100 will cost $154.50, and the U.S. Mint said it randomly hid some special-issue coins among the rolls and bags. Those will be marked “July 4th” because they were struck on that day, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Households are limited to only two orders, the U.S. Mint wrote, but that cap will be lifted at 2 p.m. Thursday.

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Tourists previously reported missing in Nepal have made contact with authorities, officials said Wednesday, as families of locals still unaccounted for after last week’s catastrophic floods held symbolic funerals for their loved ones.

Nepal’s Foreign Ministry said 324 foreign nationals have been rescued, while another 590 from 39 countries remain missing following the Aug. 26 floods that killed at least 1,118 people and left more than 3,900 missing.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that the number of Australians missing in the disaster had fallen from 43 to 38 after five were confirmed safe overnight.

“Amidst all of this tragedy, we are seeing some positive news. Today, another five Australians have been confirmed safe,” Albanese told reporters in Palau, where he is attending a regional summit.

“We hope, of course, for positive news further, and we’re doing everything we can to work with authorities,” Albanese added.

Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson for the Nepal Tourism Board, said at least five other tourists who were previously reported missing had contacted authorities by email or telephone in recent days.

It is thought the disaster happened when a glacial collapse in the Himalayas sent rock, ice and meltwater into valleys below, triggering powerful floods downstream. The surge entered rivers flowing through Tibet and Nepal, causing them to rise rapidly. Floodwaters swept away homes, buildings, roads and bridges, carrying mud and rocks downstream.

Families hold symbolic funerals

Some families in Nuwakot, one of Nepal’s worst-affected districts, have held symbolic funerals for relatives still missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.

In Hindu tradition, cremation is an important final rite, and for some families, performing the ceremony even without the bodies of their loved ones provides a sense of spiritual release.

Mukunda Rijal said his cousins and their daughters had not been found, prompting the family to perform a symbolic funeral for them.

Along the banks of the Trishuli River, a priest placed straw effigies representing the missing family members and covered them with small piles of wood before setting them alight. The symbolic funeral pyres were surrounded by offerings to Hindu deities as relatives gathered to perform the final rites.

Authorities in Nepal have also been burying recovered bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. They are preserving DNA samples, photographing distinguishing facial features and recording other identifying details to help match the remains with missing people and eventually return them to their families.

China builds access road for rescue crews

On the Chinese side, rescue crews completed a makeshift road to the disaster site at Gyirong Port on the Nepal border, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.

Crews have been clearing access for heavy machinery to be used in the search at the border crossing complex, which was washed away by the floods. The road leading to the crossing was destroyed and buried under water, mud and rocks.

At least 21 people have been killed and 541 remain missing in China, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

Survivors find shelter in Kathmandu

Some flood survivors are fleeing the devastation to seek shelter in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

Around 400 survivors, mostly from the town of Timure, about 65 miles west of Kathmandu, have been staying at the Yellow Gumba monastery. The shelter is being organized by locals and relatives, with relief supplies donated by individuals and charity organizations.

Riya Tamang, 21, who fled with her 10-month-old baby as the floodwaters approached, is among those taking shelter at the monastery. She lost her grandparents in the disaster.

“I was the last one to leave the house. It was so difficult to escape,” she said.

Her husband, who works as a cook in Gyirong town on the Chinese side of the border, also survived, and the couple now stays in touch through video calls.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military hit targets in Iran on Tuesday and Tehran fired missiles and drones in response as hostilities flare once again in an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. One U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding, killing two people and wounding dozens, local officials said.

The U.S. strikes followed others on Sunday that abruptly ended a month without military action and threatened to fully reignite a conflict that has spiked global oil prices and posed political problems for Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections. The renewed fighting comes after President Donald Trump had appeared to pivot toward trying to bend Iran to his will through economic sanctions.

“If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings,” Trump warned on social media.

U.S. Central Command said the latest strikes were in response to Tehran trying to attack commercial ships and American forces in the Middle East. Trump offered an additional explanation, telling Fox News in a phone call that U.S. forces struck Iran’s radars.

“They tried to rebuild their radar because they can’t see anything,” Trump told Fox. “We waited until it was almost built and then we hit it.”

Iranian state media reported that the U.S. had bombed civilian sites along Iran’s southern coast and hit a civilian airport. A U.S. strike hit a home where a wedding ceremony was being held in Kuhestak in southern Iran, killing two people and wounding at least 50 others, Ahmad Nafisi, Hormozgan Province’s deputy governor, told Iranian state television in a phone call. Red Crescent rescue officials in the province said the death toll had risen to four, including a child.

U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on those reports.

Iran’s military warns of ‘devastating blows’

Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff and its joint military command said the armed forces would deliver what they described as “crushing and devastating blows” against the United States. The state-run IRNA news agency cited a statement by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which warned that the attacks have only strengthened the Islamic Republic’s resolve and tightened Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows.

Explosions were reported across several southern Iranian coastal areas, including the port city of Bandar Abbas that is home to naval and air force facilities as well as Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. Witnesses in Bandar Abbas told the Associated Press that the explosions were stronger than those on Sunday and said they saw smoke rising from the eastern part of the city on the strait.

Iranian state television said U.S. strikes hit a fishmeal factory on Qeshm Island and several civilian sites in Hormozgan province. It said a fishing pier and a Ports and Maritime Organization tower in Sirik were among the locations struck.

State TV also reported that the U.S. military struck the civilian Jiroft Airport in central Iran’s Kerman province, saying a projectile struck an area outside the runway and caused no casualties or damage to airport infrastructure.

The U.S. and Iran are both seeking control over the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast that is a vital oil shipping corridor. Tehran effectively closed it after the war began.

Oil prices have moved sharply higher this week with renewed clashes between Iran and the United States. Crude, already up about 7% this week, continued to rise following the strikes on Tuesday.

The price of crude has jumped more than 50% this year and it’s dragged the cost of gasoline upward with it. The cost for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. ticked higher again overnight to $4.10, according to AAA. Last year at this time, a gallon cost $3.19.

Strikes have renewed after Iran said it would stick to a ceasefire deal if the U.S. did the same

Before military action began again, the Trump administration had argued that hitting the right economic target in a campaign of financial isolation would get Tehran to its breaking point. Now, strikes are renewing even as U.S. stockpiles of advanced interceptors have been diminishing and the war has been unpopular among many Americans.

A return to open conflict would be dangerous for the region, where Iran has targeted U.S. military bases and infrastructure in Gulf countries since the war began.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said earlier Tuesday before the latest strikes that the Islamic Republic is ready to return to the interim ceasefire deal reached with the U.S. in June if Washington does the same.

“If the U.S. returns to its commitments in the memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately reciprocate,” Iranian state media cited Pezeshkian as saying at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan.

The June interim deal called for an immediate ceasefire and started a 60-day period for negotiations aimed at reaching a wider agreement, but crumbled soon afterward.

In the previous strikes on Sunday, U.S. Central Command said its forces struck Iranian rocket launchers that would launch sea mines into the strait.

Iran responded to Sunday’s attacks by launching missiles at U.S. sites in Jordan, which were intercepted, while the United Arab Emirates said it stopped an Iranian drone over its waters. Trump acknowledged Monday that more strikes might be necessary.

The American military in recent days has cast the renewed fighting as limited, though Trump had acknowledged Monday that more strikes might be necessary.

U.S. Central Command said Monday on X that its attacks on Iranian targets on Sunday were narrowly focused.

“U.S. forces took limited, precise action against IRGC minelaying forces posing an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz,” U.S. Central Command said. “In essence, Iran created the threat and the U.S. military eliminated it to protect civilian mariners, commercial shipping, and the free flow of global commerce.”

Central Command reiterated Tuesday that its attacks followed Iranian aggression against commercial vessels and American troops in the region.

VIENNA — Syria was constructing a nuclear reactor in Deir el-Zour under the leadership of ousted former President Bashar Assad, according to a U.N. report seen Tuesday by the Associated Press.

Inspectors with the U.N. nuclear watchdog visited several sites in Syria in August and carried out verification work that confirmed the existence of a long-suspected nuclear site, according to the confidential report circulated to member states.

Based on this visit, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it is “able to establish that the former Syrian authorities had failed to report nuclear material, facilities, and activities as required under the NPT Safeguards Agreement.”

This information included a nuclear reactor under construction in Deir el-Zour, a fuel fabrication plant, and another site used for fuel storage during the rule of Assad.

Under Assad, Syria was believed to have operated an extensive undeclared nuclear program that included a nuclear reactor built by North Korea in eastern Deir el-Zour province. Following Assad’s ouster, the new government agreed to give IAEA inspectors access to suspected former nuclear sites.

The site in Deir el-Zour only became public knowledge after Israel launched airstrikes in 2007 that destroyed the facility. Syria later leveled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions about it. Israel is believed to have its own undeclared atomic weapons program that makes it the only country in the Mideast with nuclear bombs.

Israel neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons.

The IAEA took samples at the site in 2024 and reported last year that they contained uranium particles.

The new Syrian authorities have also expressed an interest in developing a civilian nuclear energy program and said any nuclear material found in the country would remain in Syria’s custody under international safeguards.

The IAEA reported Tuesday that its inspectors visited the Deir el-Zour site on Aug. 29 “to monitor progress on the excavation work.”

“Based on observations made at the location, the Agency confirms that the cooling infrastructure which has now been uncovered is consistent with that of a nuclear reactor.”

In its confidential report, the IAEA said three locations were “functionally related” to the Deir el-Zour site. One was related to “conversion and/or fuel fabrication activities,” another was for “temporary storage of construction material,” and another was for the “temporary storage of construction materials being transferred to/from” the site, as well as for “planned reprocessing activities.”

During the visit to Syria, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and a team of senior inspectors also visited a previously undeclared site in the country.

Syria notified the agency of the site’s existence in a July 17 letter and invited the IAEA “to cooperate with the Syrian authorities in the inspection and verification of the site and of any nuclear material to be potentially found.”

The IAEA said in its report that this new site contained “natural uranium metal in the form of fuel rods with cladding.” The agency verified the material and confirmed “the presence of around 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal.” The agency reported that “all of this nuclear material is currently subject to Agency containment and surveillance measures.”