Category: AP News Feed

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — Christian religious leaders from Lebanon’s southern port city of Tyre called on the international community and Lebanese officials on Tuesday to act quickly to prevent Israel from attacking the Christian district of the city, as airstrikes on nearby neighborhoods killed eight people and wounded dozens of others.

The Israeli military has issued an evacuation warning for the port city, including the Christian quarter, which has been spared so far.

The statement by the Christian leaders was from George Iskandar, the metropolitan archbishop of Tyre for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church; Elias Kfoury, the Greek Orthodox metropolitan of Tyre, Sidon and Dependencies; and Charbel Abdullah, the archeparch of the Maronite Catholic Archeparchy of Tyre.

The warning from Israel’s military prompted hundreds of people to flee the Christian district along the Mediterranean coast, while members of the Civil Defense evacuated older people to safer areas, the state-run National News Agency said.

Cars packed with mattresses, luggage and household belongings stretched for kilometers along Lebanon’s coastal highway, as residents fled Tyre following the latest Israeli warning. Traffic ground to a halt as families crammed whatever they could into vehicles, with carpets protruding from rooftops, and trunks were left partially open to accommodate furniture and personal belongings.

“After the warnings in Tyre, we left. We picked up and left,” said Ali Bahar, who was traveling with his wife and three children in a car loaded with possessions.

“Where should we go? There is nowhere to go,” Bahar said. “We will end up in the streets. We are heading to Sidon.”

Nearby, Hussein Darwish sat in the gridlock after packing his vehicle with what he could carry.

“We left to be reassured and safe,” he said.

An Israeli airstrike Tuesday in another neighborhood in Tyre killed eight people and wounded 32 others, according to the Health Ministry.

The three Christian leaders called on the international community and Lebanese leaders to “take immediate and serious action to spare the old quarter of Tyre from destruction and human tragedies.”

The Israeli warning to Tyre came after Israel and Iran traded fire following Israel’s targeting of Hezbollah in Beirut on Sunday, triggering heightened tensions in the Middle East and fears that the conflict could spread further.

Over the past few weeks, Israel’s airstrikes have caused wide destruction in Tyre, the fourth-largest city in the country.

Considered one of the oldest metropolises of the world, Tyre has several archaeological sites, some of them submerged. The city was officially declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

“The old city is not merely a residential area,” the clergy said in their statement. “It is the historical and human heart of Tyre, home to thousands of civilians, including families, children, and the elderly.”

They said that the old quarter also holds a rich cultural, religious and civilizational heritage dating back centuries.

“Any targeting or destruction of this neighborhood would constitute a humanitarian and national catastrophe with irreversible consequences,” they warned.

Kfoury said that the ongoing conflict isn’t only a war on Hezbollah.

“The war is against all of Lebanon, not just one particular group within Lebanon,” he said.

“They are destroying Lebanon. Period,” Kfoury said about the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah war that broke out on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, two days after the U.S. and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28.

He said that the fighting should stop because it’s a “destructive war.”

Last week, Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas over the past two weeks, because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.

After last week’s warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X that as the military warned days ago that Hezbollah members were working inside the Christian district, the Israeli military “will have to act against their terrorist activities in the neighborhood soon.”

Adraee said that any building used by Hezbollah for military purposes “may be subject to targeting.”

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon has killed around 3,500 people and displaced more than 1.2 million.

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Bassem Mroue reported from Beirut.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Social Security ’s retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall in 2032, a year earlier than last year’s projections, according to an annual report released Tuesday, while Medicare ’s hospital insurance trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits in 2033, which is unchanged from last year’s estimate.

Rising healthcare costs and government spending have contributed to a projected depletion date that is less than 10 years from now.

The looming challenge for the programs is a partial funding gap, not a collapse. Even after trust fund depletion, the system will continue issuing benefits, albeit at reduced amounts.

Last year, Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund go-broke date was pushed to 2033 from 2036 the year before that, according to the report from the programs’ trustees.

Meanwhile, Social Security’s combined trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034, unchanged from the 2025 report. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano said President Donald Trump’s administration is “committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security” and “eliminating waste, fraud, abuse and ensuring program integrity.”

The new funding shortfall is mainly the result of lower projected birth rates, reduced immigration and reduced trust fund revenue due to the costs of Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill that Trump signed into law last summer, according to the report.

Nancy Altman, president of the Social Security Works advocacy group, said the latest report takes “Donald Trump’s second term policies into account: A tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy, economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants. All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system’s finances.”

The trustees, who include the treasury secretary, labor secretary, health and human services secretary and the Social Security commissioner, say the latest findings show the urgency of needed changes to the programs, which have faced dire financial projections for decades. But making changes to the programs has long been politically unpopular, and lawmakers have repeatedly kicked Social Security and Medicare’s troubling math to the next generation.

AARP’s CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan said in a statement that the latest numbers “should be a wake-up call. Congress needs to act.”

“Americans have worked hard and paid into Social Security their entire lives, and they deserve to count on it when they retire,” she said. “No family should see any cuts to what they’ve earned in Social Security. ”

About 70.1 million people are enrolled in Medicare, the federal government’s health insurance that covers those 65 and older, as well as people with severe disabilities or illnesses.

Social Security benefits were last reformed roughly 40 years ago, when the federal government raised the eligibility age for the program from 65 to 67. The eligibility age of 65 has never changed for Medicare.

House Republicans hope to approve nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement on Tuesday, which would fund Homeland Security throughout President Donald Trump’s time in office. Democrats call it a blank check that imposes no limits on agents despite the deaths of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration is vowing to appeal a federal judge’s rejection of its $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, saying the much-higher fee aims to prevent foreign workers from taking American jobs. Schools and states say filling teacher and doctor jobs was already hard enough before the fee hike.

Trump says he’ll nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for the full-time job, setting up a Senate test of his use of the Justice Department to pursue his foes and give himself immunity from potential tax crimes. And as he looks forward to celebrating his 80th birthday party Sunday with a UFC cage match, Trump has begun suggesting that the eight-sided, wire-mesh cage could become a permanent South Lawn fixture.

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Trump says US ‘must’ respond after Iran downed US Army helicopter near Strait of Hormuz

President Donald Trump blamed Iran for downing a U.S. Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday and said the United States must respond to the attack.

A drone boat rescued two Army aviators who were aboard the Apache attack helicopter when it went down near the waterway that Iran has effectively closed during its war with the U.S. and Israel. Trump said in a social media post that both service members “are safe and uninjured.”

“Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” Trump wrote.

The helicopter went down as the Middle East was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the strained ceasefire in the Iran war. Iranian state television reported Tuesday that the Israeli attacks killed at least two members of the country’s air-defense units.

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Melania Trump tells students to ‘keep using artificial intelligence as a muse’

The first lady spoke at the White House while recognizing the winners of a nationwide contest in which students were asked to complete a project using an AI method or tool to address a challenge in their communities.

“Today is about opening doors,” she said. “When new doors open, passions flow, courage blossoms and dreams are realized. AI inspires.”

More than 20,000 students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and more than four dozen Defense Department schools in 10 countries participated in the inaugural Presidential AI Challenge.

Melania Trump recognized six elementary, middle and high school champion teams, along with about 120 finalists.

The first lady is a proponent of using artificial intelligence in education and also has warned of the risks posed by the technology.

Trump’s push for healthcare price transparency aims to address a major concern for voters

The warnings are the latest example of Trump leaning into the message that his administration is fixing the problem of healthcare expenses that can drain a family budget. It’s a calculated pitch ahead of the November midterms at a time when affordability is a top concern, and Trump is vulnerable on this after allowing subsidies to lapse for Affordable Care Act insurance, widely known as Obamacare.

Just 29% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s healthcare policies in the most recent survey on the issue by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Price transparency could have a particular impact in the Republican strongholds of Texas, Florida, Indiana, Alabama and Louisiana, which have among the most hospitals warned about inadequate price information.

Trump administration warns more than 500 hospitals to provide more price information or face fines

The administration argues that the lack of basic pricing information for consumers to access is keeping healthcare costs higher than they should be.

The Associated Press obtained exclusively the list of hospitals that since April have either received letters of warning or requests to submit plans to provide transparent pricing. Penalties range up to $2 million annually for each hospital that doesn’t create a plan to post clear pricing data.

The letters are meant to fix a fundamental problem: Patients, employers and insurers might not know ahead of time the cost of blood work, an imaging test or another form of treatment, and as a result pay more than they should have. AP has posted the list of hospitals that have received letters.

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House GOP leader says they’re ‘moving forward’ on passing $70 billion immigration enforcement funds

Pressed if the Republicans would be able to approve the package during afternoon votes, Majority Leader Steve Scalise appeared confident, despite their already slim advantage potentially being narrowed as lawmakers from several states dash home to campaign on primary election day.

“We always have to deal with absences, a narrow majority, that’s life in the big city,” Scalise, the Republican from Louisiana, told reporters.

Democrats oppose the package, which would fuel Trump’s immigration enforcement and deportation agenda through the rest of his time in the White House.

“We’re just going keep working through but, you know, we’re going to get our work done,” he said.

Thune says White House ‘weighing seriously’ a long-term DNI pick

Lawmakers in both parties are pressing the White House to reconsider its decision to install Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday he does not believe the administration is considering replacing Pulte in the acting role, and is instead weighing a permanent nominee to lead the intelligence community.

“I think they’re weighing seriously making a long-term pick,” Thune told reporters.

Thune added that it’s his “hope” the decision would come sooner rather than later.

Salt Lake City lawsuit is latest against DHS plan to use giant warehouses to detain immigrants

Salt Lake City and its county are suing to block a giant warehouse where Homeland Security plans to detain as many as 10,000 immigrants. Their federal lawsuit is the latest brought by local officials around the country who were not consulted before DHS purchased industrial warehouses to convert into regional immigrant processing and detention centers.

The lawsuit targets the most expensive yet: $145.4 million for a warehouse roughly the size of 15 football fields. The March purchase, from a real estate group partially owned by Deutsche Bank, cost nearly 50% more than the property’s 2025 assessed market value, records show.

In all, DHS purchased 11 warehouses for more than $1 billion in the final weeks of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure. The DHS Office of Inspector General is investigating whether that was wasteful, and Noem’s successor, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, has put it on hold.

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US military says a drone boat brought the 2 helicopter crew members to shore

A U.S. Navy drone boat rescued two Army aviators after their Apache helicopter went down near the coast of Oman, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.

Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said a 24-foot unmanned boat located the crew members, who had spent two hours in the water, and brought them to shore.

Military officials have not said what caused the helicopter to go down. The military said the incident is under investigation.

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House Speaker Johnson at White House as US surveillance tool risks a lapse

Rep. Mike Johnson is meeting with Trump now that the president’s choice of Bill Pulte for director of national intelligence has upended debate over extending an expiring foreign surveillance program.

Lawmakers in both parties are pushing the White House to drop Pulte, saying he lacks the congressionally mandated national security expertise.

Johnson expects the Foreign intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, will be part of the talks.

FISA is set to expire Friday, risking an interruption of the surveillance tool if Congress fails to extend it.

Trump says pilots are fine after US helicopter crashes near Strait of Hormuz

Trump says two U.S. Army members were not injured when their Apache attack helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz.

“The pilots are fine,” Trump said after watching the NBA finals in New York Monday night. “Nobody injured.”

What caused the crash remains unclear in a Middle East still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the straining ceasefire in the Iran war. Iranian state television reported Tuesday the Israeli attacks killed at least two members of Iran’s defense units.

A statement from the U.S. military’s Central Command said the crew were rescued within two hours and were in stable condition.

Trump insists, again, that an Iran deal is coming

“We have a good chance” of signing a deal in “two or three days,” Trump said Monday night, without providing any detailed reason for new optimism.

Trump has repeatedly predicted that a deal is near over the two months since the U.S. and Iran agreed to an initial ceasefire. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, however, said Monday that Trump’s remarks have “contradicted the agreed-upon sections, showing that (the U.S. is) neither seeking a ceasefire nor dialogue.”

“We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal,” the president said. “If we go and bomb — which we could do very easily if we want, and we spend another two or three weeks bombing — they’ll have nothing left whatsoever. But you won’t have the strait open for months.”

He added: “If we do the bombing, you know, a lot of people are going to be killed. Who wants to do that? I don’t.”

Trump’s enforcers are poised to ramp up deportations

The Senate completed its work last week, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska the only Republican to oppose it. If the House approves, Trump’s signature would all but assure an essentially uninterrupted flow of funds for his immigration enforcement and deportation agenda into 2029.

The Department of Homeland Security is under new leadership after Trump replaced Kristi Noem with new Secretary Markwayne Mullin. He has vowed to keep the department out of the headlines, but the administration is under pressure from anti-immigration advocates to deliver on Trump’s campaign promise of the largest deportation operation in American history.

So far, the administration has not hit its goal of 1 million deportations a year, but Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has promised more to come, including hinting at enforcement in New York, the nation’s biggest city, which is heavily Democratic.

House Majority leader says ICE funding is long overdue. Top Democrat calls it a blank check

“We have to fund border security and immigration enforcement, and it’s sad that Republicans have to do it on our own,” Johnson said.

The Republican-controlled Congress already provided nearly $140 billion for ICE and Customs and Border Protection as part of Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill.

Democrats wanted significant changes after the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis — insisting for example that agents be required to display their ID badges and get a judicial warrant before entering private property. Instead, the funding will come with virtually no strings attached.

“We believe that taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people – not give ICE another $70 billion blank check so that they can unleash brutality on American citizens and violently target law-abiding immigrant communities,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

House set to fund Trump’s immigration actions for rest of his term

House Republicans hope to get nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement over the finish line Tuesday, enough to fund a pair of Homeland Security agencies through the rest of President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Speaker Mike Johnson will need near perfect attendance and GOP unity for the final votes. The legislation got sidetracked when Republicans sought to include $1 billion for enhanced White House security amid Trump’s new ballroom construction, and a $1.8 billion compensation fund for Trump’s allies. Both proved politically toxic and were scrapped.

Now, the bill is focused entirely on fueling Trump’s deportation agenda, a topic Republicans hope will carry them to victory in this year’s midterm elections. The bill provides $38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26 billion for the Border Patrol and another $5 billion to cover unforeseen costs.

House set to fund Trump’s immigration actions for rest of his term

House Republicans hope to get nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement over the finish line Tuesday, enough to fund a pair of Homeland Security agencies through the rest of President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Speaker Mike Johnson will need near perfect attendance and GOP unity for the final votes. The legislation got sidetracked when Republicans sought to include $1 billion for enhanced White House security amid Trump’s new ballroom construction, and a $1.8 billion compensation fund for Trump’s allies. Both proved politically toxic and were scrapped.

Now, the bill is focused entirely on fueling Trump’s deportation agenda, a topic Republicans hope will carry them to victory in this year’s midterm elections. The bill provides $38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26 billion for the Border Patrol and another $5 billion to cover unforeseen costs.

Maine primary tests Platner’s support following mounting scandals

Voters across Maine, Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota are casting ballots in another day of primary elections in America, but much of the political world will be focused on Maine’s high-stakes U.S. Senate contest.

Neither Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins nor Democratic challenger Graham Platner faces serious opposition for their party’s nomination, but the vote will test Platner’s credibility after his progressive campaign has been rocked by controversy over his past behavior.

Elsewhere, Trump’s clout within the GOP will be tested anew in states where he’s endorsed primary candidates.

▶ Follow the latest election-related developments

With jet fuel costs soaring 78% higher, airlines profits could drop by half

Oil and jet fuel costs have soared since the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran halted most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. airlines spent more than $6 billion on jet fuel in April, up 78% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Delta, American and United all gained between 1% and 2% overnight, but the airline industry’s top global trade group warned that soaring energy costs could nearly halve this year’s profits for major carriers, even as they raise airfares, cancel flights and trim schedules.

Elevated oil prices have sent broader inflation higher, increasing household bills. They’ve also hiked bond market yields worldwide, which threatens to slow economies and undercut all kinds of investments. The 10-year Treasury yield was holding around 4.55% early Tuesday, up from 4.01% before the Iran war.

The U.S. government will issue its wholesale prices data on Tuesday and consumer prices on Wednesday.

From tennis to T-ball, the White House’s South Lawn is no stranger to sports. But not like the UFC

The White House and its storied South Lawn are no strangers to sporting events. But they’ve never seen anything like the UFC bout President Donald Trump is hosting to celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday or the eight-sided, wire-mesh cage complete with an open overhead dome featuring large screens that are surrounded by thousands of arena seats.

Sometimes called America’s backyard, the South Lawn was until now known for low-contact sports and joyful events geared toward children or bipartisanship, like the annual Easter Egg Roll or the congressional picnic.

The same space being used for blood sport, feting a president who relishes it and playing out in a hulking structure featuring a complicated overhead lighting scheme known as The Claw, illustrates yet another of the White House norms that Trump is gleefully laying to rest — or, in UFC parlance, forcing to tap out.

That the president has begun suggesting that he could make the cage-fighting venue a permanent South Lawn fixture further underscores just how far from T-ball the White House has come.

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Donald Trump booed by the crowd during the anthem prior to Game 3 of the NBA Finals

Trump was booed loudly by fans inside MSG when he was shown on video screens during the national anthem as he became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.

Chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” echoed through the arena as Avery Wilson sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but they gave way to boos moments later as Trump was displayed on the jumbo screens giving a military salute. The jeers ended when the U.S. flag followed him on the screens, and fans cheered when New York Knicks players were shown. Mentions of the San Antonio Spurs also elicited vociferous boos.

The president was unfazed. “It was, I think, mostly cheers,” he told reporters after the game before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.”

Trump watched Game 3 from Knicks owner James Dolan’s suite, along with granddaughter Kai, personal adviser Boris Epshteyn and Cabinet secretaries Lee Zeldin, Sean Duffy and Doug Burgum. He sat next to Dolan for the first quarter and spent part of the second talking to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman.

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Trump administration will offer expedited visa interviews at select embassies for $750

The State Department will offer a “premium” expedited service for foreigners seeking business or tourist visas to come to the United States that will set applicants back $750 — on top of the initial fee of $185.

In a notice to be published in the Federal Register this week, the department will unveil a pilot program that will allow visa applicants to pay the $750 to schedule an appointment for an interview within 10 days of the payment at select U.S. embassies and consulates.

The pilot program will run from July 1 to Dec. 31, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program has not yet been announced.

The move is a potential effort to ease conditions caused by the Trump administration’s push to make entering the United States more difficult. The administration has cracked down on most forms of migration for foreigners — demanding that bonds of up to $15,000 be paid for visa processing in some, mainly African, countries and requiring years of personal history, including social media accounts, to be vetted.

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

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

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

The senators urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also acts as the president’s National Security Advisor, 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.

In a response obtained by The Associated Press, Rubio replied to the senators that he understands the “political challenges” but said he is “deeply disappointed” that Democrats are opposing the legislation.

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Federal judge strikes down Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, contradicting an earlier federal court ruling upholding the fee hike.

The administration announced the much-higher fee as a way of preventing foreign workers from taking American jobs.

But U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston sided with 20 states and struck down the visa policy, concluding that the executive branch exceeded its authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,” Sorokin wrote.

H-1B visas are meant for high-skilled jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Deep-pocketed technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India. The states argued that using the H-1B program to fill vacancies for much-needed doctors and teachers was already difficult before the higher fee.

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NEW YORK (AP) — When Manhattan’s original Pennsylvania Station was demolished in 1963, it marked the undignified end to one of America’s great public works, a monolithic Beaux Arts train terminal with Roman-style columns and a spacious central waiting area that was at the time the city’s largest indoor space.

In its place rose Madison Square Garden — home of NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers — while train commuters were forced underground into gloomy, claustrophobic, low-ceilinged corridors when the redesign was completed in 1968.

“Through Pennsylvania Station one entered the city like a god,” the architectural historian Vincent Scully famously lamented. “One scuttles in now like a rat.”

But a dramatic new vision for the busiest transit hub in the Western Hemisphere calls for a return to the original station’s grandeur from 1910.

Renderings released Monday feature a rectangular stone facade lined with imposing columns along a grand entryway. Inside, a sunlight-drenched concourse boasts soaring ceilings more than 50 feet (15 meters) high in places. There are bronze finishes and other ornamental details, like a bas-relief of the city’s famous skyline and a large station clock.

Inside one entryway, an inside wall bears the seal and name of President Donald Trump, who had Amtrak assume control of the project last year after decades of political infighting among transit agencies and opposition to moving MSG from billionaire owner James Dolan.

Trump has floated renaming his hometown station in his honor as he’s sought to burnish his legacy through public works projects, from a massive new White House ballroom to a triumphal arch.

For now, though, the name etched across the proposed grand facade would still read “Pennsylvania Station,” according to the renderings. They were released by Amtrak, which owns the terminal, and Penn Transformation Partners, the design and development consortium picked for the project.

Proposal aims to make Penn Station an icon again

The proposed design draws from the ornate, Beaux-Arts design of Grand Central Terminal, the city’s other major rail hub, as well as Art Deco landmarks like the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center, according to lead design architect Vishaan Chakrabarti.

The vision, he said, is to restore Penn Station’s place among the pantheon of the city’s greatest landmarks.

“There was this fearless embrace of ornament and decoration that in some ways we’ve lost,” Chakrabarti said. “We want to bring some of that sense of craftsmanship back.”

The redesign is projected to cost roughly $8 billion, and construction is targeted to begin before the end of 2027, officials said Monday. Penn Station would remain in operation throughout as the project progresses in phases over about six years.

More than 600,000 commuters traverse the rail hub on any given workday, or more than the three major international airports that serve greater New York City — John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty — combined.

Knicks and Rangers home arena would remain at the site

Plans floated over the decades have called for relocating MSG, but the plan is for the “World’s Most Famous Arena” to remain in place. A theater owned by MSG and built directly above the tracks, however, would have to be razed.

The developers and MSG’s owner have reached an agreement on this critical point, but the final terms — including payment — are still being negotiated. That’s according to Andy Byford, a former New York City subway chief who Amtrak named as a special adviser to oversee the redevelopment.

Transit advocates complain the process has been shrouded in secrecy.

“It’s really important that there be public input and involvement,” said Lisa Daglian, who heads a group that advises the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates New York’s subway and two commuter rail systems.

“We don’t need another megamall or monument and certainly not at the cost of billions in local revenue or by putting existing services at risk,” added Danny Pearlstein of the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance.

Byford said more details will be revealed in the months ahead, including a more detailed breakdown of costs, as the developers refine the preliminary designs and the project goes through the extensive federal environmental review process.

But he vowed no fare hikes to cover project costs and no plans for the government to condemn and take surrounding properties to expand the station, as some have suggested.

At Penn Station on Tuesday, John Schoen was among the regular riders who welcomed the prospect of a more inviting commute.

“The city needs new looks. This is old,” the 55-year-old Long Island resident said. “Let’s do it. Move forward.”

Others, though, wondered how construction might worsen their commutes. James Culhane, another Long Island rider, noted parts of the station received a significant face-lift in recent years that brought in new eateries, more natural light and other improvements.

“Things are operating as well as they can be,” said the 24-year-old opera stagehand. “Just use the money elsewhere.”

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

Salt Lake City and its county have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to open a giant warehouse in the city that would be used to detain up to 10,000 immigrants.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, is the latest brought by local officials around the country who were not consulted before DHS purchased industrial warehouses that it planned to convert into regional immigrant processing and detention centers.

The lawsuit targets the most expensive property purchased by DHS for the initiative: $145.4 million for a 833,000-square-foot (77,388-square-meter) warehouse that is roughly the size of 15 football fields. The March purchase, from a real estate development group partially owned by Deutsche Bank, cost nearly 50% more than the property’s 2025 assessed market value, records show.

In all, DHS purchased 11 warehouses for more than $1 billion between January and March in the final weeks of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure under her $38.3 billion plan for a new detention model to increase bed capacity and make deportations more efficient. The DHS Office of Inspector General has opened an investigation into whether the plan was wasteful, and Noem’s successor, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, has put it on hold.

Like others filed around the country, the lawsuit in Utah alleges DHS violated federal law by failing to conduct required environmental reviews or get input from state and local officials before the purchase.

“This kind of facility has no place in Salt Lake City, not only due to its inhumane nature but also because of our limited water supply, the increased strain on public utilities systems, and the potentially drastic public health and safety impacts it would have on our residents,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said in a statement.

Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson said the plan “is a dire threat to the very essence of our community values,” adding it would overwhelm infrastructure, harm businesses, and undermine public health and safety.

A newly formed advocacy group, Uproar Utah, also planned a news conference Tuesday to discuss litigation against the warehouse plan.

“As with any transition, we are reviewing agency policies and proposals,” DHS said in a statement Tuesday, adding that Mullin has pledged to work with community leaders and be “good partners.”

Legal actions elsewhere have had some initial success.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration has issued administrative orders blocking the operation of two planned detention centers until DHS can show they are complying with state and federal environmental regulations. DHS is appealing the orders.

In Maryland, a judge has granted a preliminary injunction halting construction activities at a Williamsport warehouse while a lawsuit is heard. In New Jersey, ICE is preparing a new environmental assessment and decision after a lawsuit was filed against its plan for a detention center in Roxbury Township. Other cases are pending in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia.

TORONTO (AP) — A new Canadian-built bridge across the Detroit River that U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to block will open soon, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Gordie Howe International Bridge, jointly owned by Canada and the U.S. state of Michigan, is set to take place on Friday, while the bridge itself is expected to open to traffic later this month.

Invitations for a Friday afternoon event to “mark the next step for the Gordie Howe International Bridge” have been sent, according to an invitation obtained by The Associated Press.

The event follows a recent conversation between Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.

In February, Trump demanded that Canada turn over at least half the ownership of the bridge to the U.S. federal government and agree to other unspecified demands in one of his many salvos over cross-border trade issues.

The bridge, which would connect Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit and would be a vital economic artery between Canada and the United States, had been expected to open early this year, according to information on the project’s website.

The bridge is named after Howe, the late Canadian hockey great who spent 25 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings.

The project was negotiated by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder — a Republican — and paid for by the Canadian government to help ease congestion over the existing Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor tunnel. Work has been underway since 2018.

“Obviously the bridge will be open at the end of the week. A symbol of, but also a fact of, cooperation between our countries,” Carney told reporters as he walked into Parliament.

“Great for Canadians going across the border, Americans coming across the border, and for commerce,” he said, calling it “positive news.”

Trump threatened the bridge as the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement is up for review this year, and Trump has been taking a hard-line position before those talks, including by issuing new tariff threats.

Carney, meanwhile, has spoken out on the world stage against economic coercion by the United States.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, has said that the Canadian-funded project is a “huge boon” to her state and its economic future.

Michigan is a swing state that Trump carried in both 2016 and 2024, but lost to Biden in 2020.

Snyder wrote in an op-ed in The Detroit News earlier this year that Trump was wrong in asserting that Canada owns both the U.S. and Canadian sides of the bridge.

“Canada and the state of Michigan are 50/50 owners of the new bridge,” Snyder wrote. “Canada was wonderful and financed the entire bridge. They will get repaid with interest from the tolls. Michigan and the United States got their half-ownership with no investment.”

The Gordie Howe bridge will join the privately owned Ambassador Bridge as the second span connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

The rival Ambassador Bridge was long the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.

Companies controlled by the Moroun family, owners of the rival Ambassador Bridge, previously sued to prevent the Howe bridge from being built.

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Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes accelerated last month to their fastest pace since December, a sharp turnaround in demand after a lackluster start to the spring homebuying season.

Existing home sales rose 3.2% in May from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.17 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Sales also rose 3.2% compared with May last year.

Home sales increased from a year earlier in the Midwest, South and West, but fell in the Northeast, NAR said.

The latest sales figure topped the roughly 4.07 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

Home sales have been mostly hovering close to a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2-million.

Sales rose last month even as mortgage rates have continued to mostly trend higher this spring, although they remain below where they were a year ago.

Home prices continued to rise nationally last month. The U.S. median sales price increased 1.3% in May from a year earlier to $429,300, an all-time high for any May on data going back to 1999, NAR said. Home prices have risen on an annual basis for 35 months in a row.

Even so, home price growth is now lagging income growth in many areas. That, plus mortgage rates holding below where they were this time last year, is helping to improve affordability, giving the housing market momentum, said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

“I cannot definitively say if home sales are truly coming out of the slump, because we know that there’s still uncertainty related to the oil prices or how the mortgage rates will move,” Yun said, adding that he expects home sales will emerge from their multi-year slump if the average rate on a 30-year mortgage drops back closer to 6%.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low. They have remained sluggish so far this year. They were flat in April after declining from a year earlier through the first three months of this year.

Years of soaring home prices, especially in the early part of this decade when rock-bottom mortgage rates fueled a buying frenzy, have left many would-be homebuyers frozen out of the market. And a chronic shortage of homes for sale nationally, due partly to years of below-average new home construction, has helped prop up home prices even in a multiyear sales slump.

Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in March and April, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ranged from 6% — close to its lowest level in three and a half years — to 6.46%, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. The average rate was at 6.48% last week, down from 6.85% a year earlier.

While the average rate has remained below where it was a year ago, it has been mostly trending higher since the war with Iran began, disrupting the passage of tankers ferrying crude oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide and driving oil prices sharply higher. Expectations of high oil prices as the war continues have pushed up the long-term bond yields that lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans, causing mortgage rates to climb.

“If not for the war-related spike in inflation, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate could well be in the mid-to-upper 5’s,” said Ted Rossman, principal analyst at Bankrate.

Despite the uncertainty over mortgage rates, first-time buyers accounted for 35% of home purchases last month, the highest share going back to June 2020, Yun said. Historically, they made up 40% of home sales.

Those who can afford to buy at current rates are likely benefitting from buyer-friendly trends in many markets. In May, median list prices were down 2.4% from a year earlier, the steepest drop on data going back to 2017, according to Realtor.com.

They also have more homes on the market to choose from, although home inventory levels remain well below historical norms.

There were 1.55 million unsold homes at the end of May, up 3.3% from April and up 0.6% from May last year, NAR said. That’s still short of the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the COVID-19 pandemic.

May’s month-end inventory translates to a 4.5-month supply at the current sales pace. Traditionally, a 5- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.