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  • Ancient teeth from Siberia rewrite the plague’s timeline, dating back to over 5,500 years ago

    NEW YORK — Scientists have found the oldest known evidence of the plague, which sparked deadly outbreaks dating back about 5,500 years ago — some 200 years earlier than previously thought.

    The disease has sickened humans for thousands of years and wiped out a significant chunk of Europe’s population in the 14th century during what’s known as the Black Death. Though rare, the plague is still around today and is treated with antibiotics.

    “To understand our own history, we believe that understanding the history of plague is extremely important,” said study co-author Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

    Willerslev and other researchers looked for traces of plague-causing bacteria in remains from four cemeteries near Siberia’s Lake Baikal. They found remnants of plague DNA in teeth from 18 ancient hunter-gatherers.

    Dating the carbon in the bones revealed that the plague triggered two outbreaks, with the first cases detected around 5,500 years ago.

    The team found that the prehistoric plague developed in stages and infected several small families. It likely spread from marmots — large native rodents — when people ate their raw organs or touched infected hides during butchery. The disease also traveled between people through coughing and sneezing, the authors said.

    Many of those who died were young children aged 8 to 11. Three young girls were buried side by side, two of whom were likely cousins. An aunt and nephew were found together, but her niece was in a different shared grave, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

    “People were around to bury the dead who knew who these people were when they were alive. And that’s a really human element to all of the scientific work,” said study co-author Ruairidh Macleod, who studies ancient DNA at the University of Oxford.

    Kids may have been at greater risk because their immune systems weren’t as strong, researchers said.

    The presence of multiple victims suggests that the prehistoric plague was capable of causing both individual cases and outbreaks, said geneticist Aida Andrades Valtueña with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She had no role in the study.

    Researchers found that this type of ancient plague evolved long before bubonic plague, which was responsible for the Black Death that struck medieval Europe. But there’s evidence that earlier plagues were just as deadly. The disease decimated not only crowded cities, but also small, nomadic hunter-gatherer groups.

    Knowing this can help us “understand the steps that the bacterium took to become the deadly pathogen we know today, and that can provide clues on how pathogens may emerge in the future,” Andrades Valtueña said in an email.

  • Archaeologists find musket balls and fort linked to the Battle of Bunker Hill

    BOSTON — Generations of Boston families played and picnicked on the grassy, sloping lawns of the Bunker Hill Monument.

    Musket balls and other artifacts from one of the American Revolution’s most consequential battles were buried just below their feet the whole time.

    Inspired by a centuries-old map, archaeologists have been digging in the park that sits on the site where American patriots hastily constructed an earthen fort to slow advancing British forces at what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.

    Ground-penetrating radar identified potential locations for the fort in Boston’s Charlestown section. Soon after digging the first trench, the team led by Joe Bagley, the city of Boston’s archaeologist, found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17, 1775, one of the first of the American Revolution.

    “The part that’s really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch,” said Bagley, standing over one of the two dig sites, where soil is removed about 4 inches at a time, put in buckets and filtered through screens. Any items found are bagged up and identified.

    Tea cups and wig curlers

    So far, the dig has uncovered musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle. They also found objects likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area after the battle — including tea cups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons, and a wig curler. There were nearly 150 combatants who died there but no human remains have been found, though a forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones.

    “Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You’ve got musket balls, gun flints. It’s what you would expect to see,” Bagley said. “It’s pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle.”

    The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, skirmishes fought on April 19, 1775. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war’s first significant battle.

    Historic battle

    Rebels intended to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. But for reasons still unclear, they instead took a position on a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed’s Hill, where most of the fighting took place.

    The battle ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before the British had sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Bunker Hill is often portrayed as an American victory, since the British failed to win decisively and it served to galvanize the colonies against the British.

    Today, a 221-foot white obelisk atop Breed’s Hill memorializes the battle.

    On Wednesday, a church service in Charlestown will be followed by a procession that makes its way to the Bunker Hill Monument. A remembrance ceremony will be held there that includes a wreath-laying, moment of silence and musket firing demonstration. The dig also ends Wednesday.

    Musket balls tell stories

    At the dig site, Joel Bohy, a battlefield archaeologist who specializes in identifying American Revolution weaponry, marveled at what had been pulled from the dirt. One volunteer held in her hand two jagged stones — the gray one was an English gun flint while a beige one was a French gun flint. When the trigger on the musket was pulled, flint struck the steel, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder.

    They also found eight marble-sized musket balls from both sides in the battle. The markings and shape of some bullets showed they had been fired from a distance but didn’t hit anyone. If they had, the balls would have been deformed.

    “You can see the ramrod mark from when the soldier rammed it down. You can the little ring on the top where it was pushed down,” Bohy said, adding that “marks on the edge of the ball” show that it had been fired.

    Where was the fort?

    Using pick axes and shovels, more than 1,000 provincials and residents dug through the night to construct a ditch that was 3 feet deep and over 6 feet wide. They shoveled the soil in front of the ditch to make a 6-foot-high wall or parapet that reached 150 feet long on each of the four sides.

    A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed’s Hill. But it wasn’t until the dig that anyone had confirmed the shape in the map was accurate. Previous digs in the 1990s had found items related to the battle and some evidence of the ditches.

    “If you come to the site, we have the monument, we have a lot of maps on display, and the landscape is beautiful. But you can’t really see the fort, the fortifications that were built,” Bagley said. “Very little of what’s here visibly is from 1775. So, this trench is the reason why all of this is here.”

    History comes alive

    Beyond locating the fort, the dig also provides visitors a chance to hold “a piece of the battle in their hand,” Bohy said. “In a way, it makes the history more dimensional when you look at these objects from the battle itself.”

    Several tourists from Colorado stopped by to watch the dig. One visitor, Greg Nockleby, who had spent a week in Boston learning about American history, said watching the archaeologists at work was a “wonderful surprise.”

    “A live dig happening right now to uncover our nation’s history is amazing,” he said. “To see that there has been people here who have died for our freedom and our nation is very immersive.”

  • ‘A million years isn’t enough’: Victims’ relatives confront Gilgo Beach serial killer at sentencing

    RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — After decades waiting for justice, relatives of women murdered by New York’s Gilgo Beach serial killer laid into him Wednesday before he was sentenced to life in prison. He told them: “I am responsible” for the crimes.

    “The words I would say would have no meaning,” added Rex Heuermann, the Long Island architect who lived a secret life of violence for years before admitting he killed eight women.

    The sentencing capped an extraordinary investigation that solved one of New York’s most perplexing mysteries. The seemingly unconnected and largely overlooked disappearances of young women became the focus of true-crime documentaries, books, and podcasts after police began discovering the victims’ skeletal remains in the sandy scrub along a coastal parkway.

    Heuermann, 62, will have no possibility of parole.

    But “a million years isn’t enough,” Jasmine Robinson, a cousin of victim Jessica Taylor, said. “Nothing will ever make this right.”

    “You fill me with so much repugnance, I can’t stand it,” Robinson said.

    Judge calls Heuermann ‘despicable’

    As a series of victims’ kin spoke, Heuermann sat with his hands on the defense table, looking straight ahead and lightly tapping his fingers. Then Amanda Funderburg, victim Melissa Barthelemy’s sister, urged Heuermann to look at her.

    He glanced in her direction, but his eyes were slightly downcast.

    “I hope you suffer,” said Funderburg, who recounted getting a taunting phone call from him days after Barthelemy disappeared, when Funderburg was 15 years old.

    JoAnn Mack, the mother of victim Valerie Mack, told the killer that her daughter “had dreams, and you took them all away from her.”

    “Justice has been done, but it can’t replace what has been taken,” Mack said. Valerie Mack had worked as an escort in Philadelphia.

    Heuermann pleaded guilty in April to charges that he murdered seven women: Barthelemy, Mack, Taylor, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, and Sandra Costilla.

    Heuermann also admitted in court to killing an eighth victim, Karen Vergata, though he was never charged in her death. He said he strangled his victims, many of them sex workers, and dismembered some of their bodies.

    “Are you at least a little sorry?” Judge Timothy Mazzei asked him Wednesday in a loud, indignant voice.

    Heuermann nodded and appeared to mouth “yes.”

    “You are disgusting — a despicable man, if you are a man at all,” the judge said, his voice rising. “And you are a coward.”

    As Heuermann was led away in handcuffs, spectators in the packed courtroom seemed to jeer.

    Victims’ children recount a confounding loss

    Most of the women disappeared between 2000 and 2010, and most of their remains were found on a parkway not far from Long Island’s Gilgo Beach, some 50 miles from Manhattan.

    Costilla’s remains were found in 1993, more than 60 miles away in the Hamptons, while Vergata’s remains were found in 1996 on Fire Island, more than 20 miles east of Gilgo Beach.

    Brainard-Barnes’ two children, who were 7 and 1 when she disappeared in 2007, underscored Wednesday how her absence shaped their lives and how she never got to know the adults they grew up to be. Her sister, Melissa Cann, said she lived with “survivor’s guilt” for decades, wondering whether she could have done something more to protect Brainard-Barnes.

    “It was a weight I carried everywhere,” Cann said, sobbing deeply. But, she said, that guilt is “not mine to carry. It is for Rex and Rex alone.”

    Liliana Waterman was 3 when her mother, Megan Waterman, vanished. The daughter said she didn’t fully understand what had happened until she was about 9.

    “In an instant, my world was shattered,” she said. “Was she in pain? Was she scared?”

    How the Gilgo Beach serial killer was caught

    The case spilled into view in 2010, when investigators started to find remains along Ocean Parkway while looking into the disappearance of another sex worker, Shannan Gilbert, whose death was ultimately ruled an accidental drowning.

    The case went cold until 2022, when detectives linked Heuermann to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.

    Eventually, they matched DNA from a pizza crust Heuermann discarded in a Manhattan trash can to genetic material extracted from highly degraded hair fragments found on the women’s remains.

    Investigators amassed other evidence, including cell phone and tracking data showing Heuermann arranged meetings with some victims shortly before their disappearances.

    After Heuermann’s 2023 arrest, prosecutors recovered what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings from his computer files. Among the documents was a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy evidence.

    Calling the man “a monster,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney declared there was nothing Heuermann could say to mitigate his deeds.

    As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to cooperate with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit to help catch other serial killers.

    Heuermann spent the last three years alone in a segregated cell at the Suffolk County jail, reading crime novels, occasionally being visited by his lawyers or family, and striking up a brief correspondence with the infamous “Happy Face Killer,” according to Sheriff Errol Toulon.

    Through their lawyers, Heuermann’s ex-wife and two grown children said they did not attend the sentencing out of respect for the victim’s families.

  • Lionel Messi ties Klose’s World Cup scoring record with unforgettable hat trick for Argentina

    KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lionel Messi delivered his first World Cup hat trick while matching Miroslav Klose’s career tournament scoring record Tuesday night, giving thousands of Argentina fans packed inside of Arrowhead Stadium for a match against Algeria a moment they will never forget.

    Messi scored his first goal in the opening minutes off a nifty feed from Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, the second early in the second half, and the third moments before subbing out to a standing ovation.

    The goals came 20 years to the day that Messi made his World Cup debut for Argentina in a match against Serbia and Montenegro — he scored in that one, too — and made him only the second player to score in five editions of the tournament.

    The USMNT-Paraguay game was the most-watched soccer broadcast in U.S. history

    Messi has 16 goals in his six World Cup appearances, and it seems inevitable that Klose’s record will fall in the coming weeks. The hat trick was the 61st of his career and his 11th while playing with the national team.

    It was the fifth straight World Cup game in which Messi has scored.

    The hat trick also upstaged two of soccer’s other big stars — Kylian Mbappé of France and Erling Haaland of Norway — who had big games Tuesday. Mbappé scored twice in France’s 3-1 win over Senegal earlier in the day and is tied for fourth on the World Cup scoring list with 14, while Haaland scored twice for Norway in its 4-1 win over Iraq.

    Messi, who turns 39 next week, had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup. But the eight-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, which honors global soccer’s best player, had no problems in a tuneup last week with Iceland, scoring on a penalty kick while playing 20 minutes.

    Messi’s appearance against Algeria was the 200th of his international career, which began in 2005 at the age of 18. The only players with more are Portugal’s Ronaldo, who will play in his 229th on Wednesday, and Bader al-Mutawa, who played in 202 for Kuwait.

    Argentina is among four teams making their base camp in the Kansas City metro, and much as it has the rest of the world, Messi-mania has swept through the area ever since La Albiceleste’s arrival about two weeks ago.

    A USMNT history lesson is a reminder: The win over Paraguay was big, but it was only one game

    On match day, thousands of fans wearing his No. 10 jersey trekked into the home of the NFL’s Chiefs on the outskirts of Kansas City, singing odes to their hero from Rosario. Meanwhile, during a watch party at the downtown Power & Light District, a goat accompanied by former NFL quarterback-turned Fox broadcaster Jameis Winston came on stage wearing an Argentina jersey.

    The humorous moment seemed to have foreshadowed a big night for Messi when he scored an hour later, and the argument that he is soccer’s GOAT — the greatest of all time — is becoming no argument at all with every World Cup goal he scores.

  • How parents can talk to their kids about vaping as FDA authorizes some flavored e-cigarettes

    Ricky Resendez first tried e-cigarettes in eighth grade. By the time he got to high school, he was vaping daily.

    “It was just kind of normal,” said Ricky, a 17-year-old recent graduate in Superior, Wis. “Kids were vaping in class, in the bathrooms, wherever.”

    Nationally, nearly 6% of middle and high school students — amounting to 1.63 million kids — reported using electronic cigarettes in 2024, federal figures show. Although that is down from previous years, e-cigarettes remain the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, and nearly 9 out of 10 of kids choose flavored products.

    Some doctors are concerned that youth vaping rates may rise again. The Food and Drug Administration recently announced its first authorization of fruit-flavored vapes intended for adults interested in quitting or cutting back on more harmful traditional cigarettes. The policy shift came after months of appeals to President Donald Trump from the vaping industry. An FDA memo released this week said these fruit-flavored e-cigarettes are not significantly better at helping smokers quit than tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes.

    “I understand the goal of giving adult smokers a less harmful off-ramp, but fruit and sweet flavors are precisely what draw young people in,” said Scott Hadland at Mass General Brigham for Children and Harvard Medical School. “I worry this could erode the hard-won progress that brought teen vaping to its lowest level in roughly a decade.”

    Experts say there are ways parents can counteract the allure of e-cigarettes, teach kids about the dangers of vaping, and help them quit.

    Vaping poses many dangers to kids

    Devika Rao, a pediatric pulmonologist at Children’s Health in Dallas, sees lots of kids with respiratory problems caused by vaping, including coughing, worsening asthma, bronchitis, and more severe types of lung disease.

    Studies show teens who vape report higher rates of wheezing, shortness of breath, and a reduced ability to tolerate exercise. Gaby Cuadra of Miami, who vaped for nine years starting at age 15, remembers how it hurt her high school track-and-field performance.

    “As the years kept going on and I would keep vaping, the distances that I used to be able to run, I, like, couldn’t do them anymore,” said Cuandra, 25. “I would run out of breath.”

    While an e-cigarette’s aerosol doesn’t contain most of the 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, most vapes “emit numerous potentially toxic substances,” according to a comprehensive 2018 consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Researchers said the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes are not yet clear.

    One of the biggest dangers of vaping is nicotine addiction, which can disrupt the developing brain and affect attention, learning, and mood.

    “The addiction factor cannot be overstated enough,” Rao said. “Adolescent brains are primed for addiction.”

    How to talk to your child about vaping

    Start by asking questions, experts advise. You can raise the issue by, for example, pointing out a new vape shop.

    “Start open-ended conversations,” Rao said.

    Ask what your child knows about vaping and its harms, whether they’ve seen e-cigarettes and if their friends are using them.

    Even if your kid is already vaping, Rao said, take a deep breath and don’t yell. Be nonjudgmental.

    Consider what your child may see on social media, where some influencers call nicotine a “hack” for stress relief. Some studies show that many people misinterpret the curbing of nicotine withdrawal symptoms as stress or anxiety relief and that quitting reduces stress. A 2025 study in the journal Tobacco Control said vaping may be linked to adverse mental health outcomes and that those who quit “experience fewer urges to vape, reduced anxiety, and stabilized mood.”

    Teens’ decisions are often based on their peers and what’s cool, said Anthony Alberg of the University of South Carolina, a member of the expert committee that produced the National Academies vaping report. Tell your teen they don’t have to succumb to peer pressure and that their friends should want to be friends whether they vape or not.

    Younger children, Alberg said, may be more likely to listen to arguments about health effects, such as comparing vaping to “putting poison in your system.”

    Arming kids with information is better than simply trying to limit access to vapes, experts said, since age restrictions often don’t keep them out of kids’ hands.

    “Most teens get e-cigarettes from friends, older peers or online sellers rather than buying them in a store,” Hadland said.

    A teen’s journey through vaping and quitting

    When Ricky first tried e-cigarettes, he used an older cousin’s vape. Later, an older friend bought e-cigarettes for him and his friends. He particularly liked the flavors blue raspberry, strawberry, watermelon, and kiwi.

    In the early days, he thought vaping helped him with his ADHD.

    “What I didn’t realize is that because I was addicted to nicotine, when I didn’t have it, I’d be anxious and really couldn’t focus,” he said. “Instead of being something that helped me, it just made things worse.”

    Vaping also sapped his stamina, made it harder to sleep, worsened his asthma and compromised his performance as a football player and wrestler.

    Eventually, he got into trouble with his school and parents for vaping and selling vapes to others. He began meeting with a school social worker and joined the American Lung Association’s Not On Tobacco program, which helps teens to quit.

    The first couple of weeks were extremely difficult. But eventually, he stopped thinking about vaping as much. He quit for good in 2022.

    Like Ricky, most middle and high school students who vape want to quit, researchers have found.

    Parents can help them by first seeing their doctor, who can connect them with counseling or free text-message quit programs for young people.

    For kids who vape heavily, Hadland said doctors may consider medications like Chantix or nicotine replacement therapy as part of a supervised quitting plan.

    Cuandra quit after giving up e-cigarettes for Lent, assisted by a free program developed by Truth Initiative and Mayo Clinic called EX, which provides text message support, advice, and encouragement.

    “The best thing I ever did for myself was quit vaping,” said Cuandra, who has shared her story on social media.

    Since Ricky gave up vaping, he’s also shared what he learned. Usually, he asks his peers what triggers their vaping and how they can avoid those situations, as he did.

    “I tell them, like, ‘I’m not here to judge you,’” he said. “‘I’m here to help you.’”

  • U.S. infant mortality rate fell to an all-time low, though it still trails other similar nations

    NEW YORK — Infant mortality in the U.S. dropped to a new all-time low in 2025, according to preliminary government data.

    There were slightly fewer than 5.4 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    While that appears to be a small decline from about 5.5 in 2024 and 5.6 in the two years preceding, researchers say it is statistically meaningful and translates to hundreds of fewer infant deaths per year.

    It’s difficult to pinpoint what’s driving the recent developments, but “this is an encouraging data point, and we hope that this trend will continue,” said Michael Warren, chief medical and health officer for the March of Dimes.

    Infant mortality is the measure of how many babies die before reaching their first birthday. Because the number of babies born in the U.S. varies year to year, researchers calculate rates to compare infant mortality over time.

    The overall numbers, too, have been going down. U.S. infant deaths fell to about 19,350 last year, according to provisional CDC data that may rise a little as additional analysis is completed. The final tally is still expected to be down from about 20,050 in 2024 and about 20,160 in 2023, according to the agency.

    The U.S. rate has inched down over the decades — it was at 7.5 per 1,000 three decades ago — thanks to medical advances and public health efforts.

    But it has remained worse than in other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care, and other problems. A study published last year found the U.S. infant mortality rate in 2022 — when the rate rose — was nearly twice as high as what was seen in several other high-income democratic nations, including Italy, Japan, Spain, and Sweden.

    That was the year of the first statistically significant jump in the U.S. rate in about two decades. Experts attributed that rise to a rebound in RSV and flu infections.

    In 2023, U.S. health officials began recommending two new measures to prevent the toll on infants: One was giving a lab-made antibody shot for infants that helps the immune system fight off the virus, and the other was giving an RSV vaccine to women between 32 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy. A March of Dimes expert last year said the effort likely contributed to the improvement in 2024.

    Meanwhile, a decline in sudden infant death syndrome could be connected to an increase in education around safe sleeping for infants, Warren said in a statement.

    The CDC posted the 2025 provisional data in late May. On Tuesday, the agency released a more in-depth analysis of 2024 infant mortality data, offering details not yet available for 2025. Among that report’s highlights:

    — Death rates declined both for the youngest infants, less than 28 days old, and for older infants. Those declines continued last year, the 2025 provisional data indicate.

    — In 2024, infant mortality continued to differ by race, sometimes dramatically. Death rates for infants born to Black women were more than twice as high as those for the infants of Hispanic, white, and Asian American women.

    — Researchers noted a decline in the mortality rate for infants born at full term, at 39 to 40 weeks. But rates did not change significantly for other gestational age groups.

    — Mississippi had the highest infant mortality rate, at 9.65 deaths per 1,000 births, and New Hampshire had the lowest, at just under 3 per 1,000.

    “These differences are reflective of a variety of reasons related to access to care, community factors, and policies that improve health and outcomes,” Warren said.

  • Iran says the deal to end war with U.S. requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s top diplomat said Tuesday that the tentative deal to end the war with the United States would require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon — a condition Israel has already rejected and that could sink the agreement, leading to the resumption of all-out war.

    The deal, which is between the U.S. and Iran, has not been made public, and officials have sometimes offered contradictory interpretations of what is in it. While Israel is not party to the agreement, it is part of the war: It joined the U.S. in launching strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, and has since fought the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon and seized large swaths of that country.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon would violate the deal.

    “Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end,” Araghchi said.

    A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss outlines of the agreement, has said the deal does not call for an Israeli withdrawal. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would remain in Lebanon “as long as necessary.”

    The negotiations to end the war have been plagued by such disagreements before, leading to a prolonged but uneasy ceasefire that has failed to develop into a permanent end to hostilities and has left the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world’s energy supplies, effectively shut.

    In other developments, Switzerland’s foreign ministry said the signing ceremony for the deal will take place Friday at the Bürgenstock resort near the city of Luzern. Ministry officials said Tuesday that the location was proposed by Pakistani and Qatari mediators, along with the U.S. and Iran.

    Lebanon tests the durability of the deal

    Pakistan, a key mediator, has said the deal called for an end to military operations, including in Lebanon, as Iran long insisted. But Araghchi’s call for an Israeli withdrawal adds a new wrinkle.

    It puts Israel into a dilemma as it tries to degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities without undermining an agreement championed by its most important ally, the United States. Israel invaded southern Lebanon after Hezbollah fired missiles across the border during the first week of the war. Since then, it has expanded its military footprint to levels unseen in decades and struck targets deep inside Beirut.

    Though Hezbollah has been weakened, it retains the ability to strike Israel, leaving open questions about the effectiveness of Israel’s campaign.

    As of Tuesday evening, Netanyahu had not seen the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, said a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door details. Another person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations between Israel and the U.S., said Israeli officials have not asked U.S. negotiators for the memorandum.

    Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press. The White House declined to comment on whether Netanyahu or Israeli officials have reviewed the agreement.

    The Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, told NPR that while Israel does not know the details of the deal, the apparent inclusion of Lebanon is “unnecessary and unhelpful.”

    The extent of Israel’s strikes has at times opened a public fracture between its leaders and U.S. President Donald Trump, who told reporters Tuesday that he was “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah.”

    “It just goes on forever,” he said of Israel’s strategy. Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed nearly 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and displaced more than 1 million. “Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” he said.

    Trump said he’s open to sending the emerging agreement to the U.S. Congress for review.

    Speaking on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in the French Alps, Trump said, “I like the idea, send it to Congress please.” He added, “I mean, who wouldn’t approve it.”

    Republicans on Capitol Hill say they want Trump to provide more information about the agreement, with some expressing skepticism that the deal can deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon.

    Israel and the Lebanese government have entered into their own U.S.-mediated direct negotiations, of which Hezbollah was not a part. Those talks have yielded several announced ceasefires that were never implemented on the ground. Lebanese officials initially tried to keep Lebanon separate from the U.S.-Iran negotiations, not wanting to be seen as beholden to Iran, but they have since welcomed the announcement that the deal to end the U.S.-Iran war would include a ceasefire in Lebanon.

    Araghchi’s latest comments appear to match the understanding of two regional officials with direct knowledge of the interim deal. The officials, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations, said it would require Israel to leave nearly all the territory it occupies in Lebanon, minus a few hilltop points along the border seized earlier.

    The officials say Iran insisted the accord include Lebanon in the last days of the negotiations.

    U.S. allies push to make deal work at G7 summit

    Lebanon is only one of several major questions hanging over the ceasefire ahead of the planned ceremonial signing.

    The agreement is meant to provide a meaningful truce in a monthslong war that has killed thousands across the Middle East, including the top leaders of Iran’s theocracy, and raised the prices of fuel, food, and other basic goods far beyond the region.

    The agreement provides for the “immediate” opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of the American naval blockade of Iranian ports, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss outlines of the agreement.

    Pakistani officials who helped broker the agreement also described plans for the simultaneous lifting of Iran’s closure of the strait and the U.S. blockade.

    The United States and Iran will then begin 60 days of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and the potential lifting of sanctions, Pakistani officials who helped broker the interim deal said, speaking on condition of anonymity about the unpublished text.

    The pact also includes the possibility of releasing Iran’s frozen funds and a $300 billion fund to help rebuild Iran if Tehran meets certain benchmarks, senior U.S. officials told reporters Monday. Trump later said the United States would not “invest” funds in Iran.

    Regarding the timeline, regional officials who spoke to AP about the deal said the release of frozen Iranian assets would be tied to Tehran implementing the deal. Gulf Arab states also have pledged to inject billions of dollars in Iran’s economy, they added, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations.

    Iran’s nuclear program, specifically the fate of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, would be subject to the 60-day clock. Iran has agreed to discuss ways to possibly “dilute or remove” it, the officials said. However, it remains unclear whether Tehran would agree to that, particularly with hard-liners opposed to giving it up.

    U.S. officials have not yet explained how they see the agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program, including who will be in charge of verifying that Iran is in compliance and who will destroy or remove highly enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last summer.

  • Trump’s Iran deal greeted with skepticism and scrutiny on Capitol Hill

    WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill said Monday they need more information about the agreement between the United States and Iran announced by President Donald Trump, and some are expressing skepticism as they ask the White House for details.

    The agreement announced Sunday to end the war in Iran, set for a ceremonial signing Friday in Geneva, is centered around reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the United States’ naval blockade in the region, along with financial incentives for Iran if it meets certain benchmarks. But Senate Republicans and Democrats who returned to Washington on Monday said there were still many unanswered questions about the deal and they need thorough briefings before it is finalized.

    “I just don’t know enough about it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told reporters in the Capitol. “Even the people who follow this stuff closely up here don’t know that much about it.”

    Congressional leaders and intelligence committees generally receive higher-level intelligence briefings before rank-and-file members, and they are notified of major developments before they are announced. But Thune said he had not been personally briefed on the deal.

    “I think that my understanding of what it entails — and, again, not having seen anything — it would require, I think the issues are going to be compliance, and how are you going to enforce that,” Thune said.

    Thune’s concerns were echoed by several other GOP senators.

    “If it’s a secret deal then how can I take it seriously?” asked Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

    Vice President JD Vance told ABC News on Monday that the White House would release the text this week, “and what everybody will see is that Iran doesn’t get a dime of money unless they perform their obligations.”

    Senators have questions about details

    Trump has not yet explained how his agreement will address Iran’s nuclear program, including who will be in charge of verifying that Iran is in compliance and who will destroy or remove highly enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last summer.

    A memorandum of understanding also includes the possibility of releasing Iran’s frozen funds, sanctions relief, and a $300 billion fund to help rebuild Iran if Tehran meets certain benchmarks, senior U.S. officials told reporters Monday. But the document has not been released.

    Thune said he wants to know more about the conditions on the financial incentives for Iran. He said the deal would be a “good one” if the incentives are conditioned upon Iran winding down its nuclear program and getting rid of the enriched uranium, “preventing them from having a nuclear capability in the future.”

    Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) said he is hopeful but “until you see the final document, it’s hard to make an assessment.”

    “I go into it very skeptical of the government of Iran,” Kennedy said. “They learn to lie before they learn to talk. So any agreement we make with them has to have guardrails. It has to have a way to judge through independent inspection if they’re doing what they say they’re doing.”

    Senate could have a vote

    Under the Iran nuclear agreement review act passed by Congress during the Obama era, any deal the U.S. reaches concerning Iran’s nuclear material must be submitted within a certain amount of time to Congress for review. But it is up to Congress whether that happens — it is not required.

    President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the JCPOA, was submitted for what’s called a vote of disapproval in the Senate. The outcome did not roll back the agreement, but put the senators on record with their support or opposition.

    Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump and a longtime hawk on Iran, has appeared skeptical over the emerging agreement. He said he is “pulling for a deal” but Congress will need to review and vote on it, and he wants to see the memorandum that the two countries have agreed on.

    “The way Iran describes it, it’s awful. The way we describe it, it makes sense to me,” Graham (R., S.C.) said. “Let’s look at it and see what it actually is.”

    Graham has said he wants Vance, whom he called “the architect of the deal,” to present it to lawmakers.

    Vance responded to Graham on Monday, saying in the interview with ABC that he would “caution Lindsey Graham and anybody else not to believe the hard-liner propaganda in Iran, but to believe what’s actually in the agreement.”

    Even though Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is the son of the last supreme leader, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard still has significant authority in Iran, Vance told CNN in a separate interview that “fundamentally, it is a much different group of people.” He insisted that the conflict had unlocked much more direct communication with high-level Iranian officials and that the relationship was “fundamentally transformed.”

    Next steps in Congress unclear

    Most Senate Republicans said they want to review the deal, but it was still unclear whether they would have a vote, or if Congress could pass it.

    Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri said he doesn’t think an up-or-down vote is necessary.

    “You have the camp that wants us to lose and then you have a camp that wants a forever war,” Schmitt said. “President Trump’s not in either one of those camps, and neither am I.”

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said he expects the Senate will get the final say. But he praised Trump for making “the single most consequential decision of his presidency” by attacking Iran.

    “I think he made America safer,” Cruz said. “The president as commander in chief acted decisively to stop that ayatollah from getting nuclear weapons.”

    Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican who serves on the Intelligence Committee, said he expects there are still many more steps to the process before any package would come to Congress for review.

    “Seems like early reports are showing that this is kind of the first step,” he said. “Once we have a final agreement, we need to take it up and pass it. … If you want a long-term agreement it’s got to be law.”

    Democrats ask what has changed

    Democrats questioned how the deal will improve upon the U.S. position before the war — and how it differs from Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal.

    “For all his critique of JCPOA, we had international observers, we actually had an alliance there that included the Europeans, and Russia and China were all signatories,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said there are more questions than answers, including what happens to the Iranian nuclear program and sanctions on Iranian oil.

    Trump has spent “tens of billions of dollars” and service members and Iranians have died, “and he still cannot explain how one family in Massachusetts is better off,” Warren said.

    Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said an end to what has been a costly and unpopular war would be a good resolution, but he wants to hear more details.

    “An off ramp is good because it was a war that should have never been started,” he said.

  • Pizza Hut, overtaken by the arrival of delivery culture, will be sold for $2.7 billion

    Pizza Hut, the 68-year-old chain that has long struggled with growing competition and outdated restaurants, will be sold for $2.7 billion by parent company Yum Brands.

    Yum said Tuesday that the private equity firm LongRange Capital will buy Pizza Hut, excluding the mainland China business, for about $1.5 billion.

    The mainland China Pizza Hut will be purchased by Yum China Holdings Inc. for approximately $1.2 billion, the company said. China is Pizza Hut’s second-largest market outside the U.S., accounting for 19% of sales.

    Yum Brands, which also owns KFC and Taco Bell, began to explore its options for Pizza Hut in November. Last year, Yum Brands’ global sales rose 5% but Pizza Hut’s sales fell 2%.

    In February, Yum Brands announced plans to close 250 U.S. Pizza Hut locations. Pizza Hut had 19,974 restaurants worldwide at the end of last year.

    “Pizza Hut has long been the weak link in Yum’s portfolio,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, wrote Tuesday. “Despite efforts to revitalize the brand and shut underperforming locations, it has become increasingly clear that pushing the division back into growth will require a level of investment and patience that Yum is just not prepared to commit to.”

    Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kan., by two brothers who borrowed $600 from their mother to open the store. They chose the name because their sign only had room for eight letters.

    Pizza Hut’s familiar red roof debuted in 1969 and by 1971 it was the top pizza chain in the world by sales. PepsiCo acquired Pizza Hut in 1977 but spun off its restaurant division — which became Yum Brands — in 1997.

    By the 1980s, Domino’s was the fastest-growing U.S. pizza company, buoyed by its promise of 30-minute delivery. As carryout and delivery grew in popularity, Pizza Hut was saddled with large, dine-in restaurants.

    The chain has been further pinched in recent years by the growth of DoorDash, Uber Eats, and other restaurant delivery companies which marketed access to a slew of cuisines besides pizza.

    By selling Pizza Hut, Yum Brands can focus more on its brands with stronger sales, Yum CEO Chris Turner said.

    “Under LongRange and Yum China, Pizza Hut will be well positioned for future growth with ownership that brings deep expertise in the restaurant industry,” Turner said in a statement.

    Yum Brands, based in Louisville, Ky., expects the sale in U.S. and China to close in the third quarter. The company’s stock closed up 1.9% Tuesday.

  • U.K. military investigates after Russian warship fires warning shots at yacht in the Channel

    LONDON — A Russian warship fired warning shots at a U.K.-registered pleasure yacht in the English Channel on Tuesday, authorities said, an incident that caused no damage but illustrated heightened tensions between the two countries.

    Britain’s Defense Ministry said it was investigating an “incident” after the yacht reported being fired on by a Russian navy vessel about 23 miles south of the Isle of Wight, outside U.K. territorial waters.

    There were no reports of injuries or damage to the sailing yacht, which continued its journey from the U.K. toward France.

    The BBC reported that the yacht, which has no motor, had drifted toward the Russian vessel in foggy conditions.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said the crew of the frigate Admiral Grigorovich tried to contact the yacht when it was seen sailing on a “dangerous course in close proximity with the warship.” It said the ship’s crew launched flares and issued sound signals when the yacht did not respond.

    “After the distance had closed to 150 meters (500 feet), the frigate’s commander decided to fire warning shots across the vessel’s bow using small arms,” the ministry said. It said the yacht then changed course and sailed away.

    The ministry said the ship’s crew “acted in strict accordance” with international navigation rules to avoid a collision.

    Russian warships passing through the English Channel are routinely shadowed by the Royal Navy, and patrol vessel HMS Mersey was monitoring the Russian ship at the time of the reported incident. The ministry said it was investigating Tuesday’s incident.

    The British military said last month that it had monitored the Admiral Grigorovich throughout April as the Russian ship escorted six Russia-linked civilian vessels near the U.K.

    The altercation occurred two days after British commandos boarded and detained a sanctioned tanker in the Channel that is suspected of being part of the Russian “shadow fleet.” Officials are not linking the two events.

    The tanker’s captain, an Indian national charged with shipping Russian oil in violation of international sanctions over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, was ordered held in jail after appearing Tuesday in court.

    The British military has had several close encounters with Russian vessels in the region and warned Moscow in November that it was ready to deal with any incursion into its territory after the spy ship Yantar was detected on the edge of U.K. waters north of Scotland.

    In April, Britain and Norway said they had tracked a Russian attack sub and two spy submarines operating north of the U.K. for several weeks.

    A Royal Navy frigate, aircraft, and hundreds of personnel spent weeks following the Russian vessels and prevented them from carrying out “nefarious” activities against underwater infrastructure, then-Defense Secretary John Healey said.

    He accused Moscow of using the distraction of the Iran war to ramp up malign activity against Europe.

    Five years ago, Russia said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the Black Sea to force the British destroyer HMS Defender out of an area near Crimea that Moscow claimed as its territorial waters.

    The U.K. denied that account and insisted its ship wasn’t fired upon. It was the first time since the Cold War that Moscow acknowledged using live ammunition to deter a NATO warship, reflecting the growing risk of military incidents amid soaring tensions between Russia and the West. The incident occurred about six months before Russia invaded Ukraine.