The United States launched several waves of strikes on Iran into Monday morning over an Iranian attack on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz that set it ablaze and left a crew member missing over the weekend. Iran retaliated by targeting countries across the Middle East.

Missile alert sirens sounded at dawn Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. There was no immediate word on damage.

The United States and Iran each asserted Monday they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war.

The attacks, sparked by Iran striking a container ship Sunday in the strait off the coast of Oman, again underlined that the waterway that once saw a fifth of the world's traded crude oil and natural gas pass through it remained the key issue in negotiations. The narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf has seen shipping disrupted since the start of the war as Iran maintained a chokehold on it by attacking commercial vessels around it, intimidating shippers.

Oil prices jumped and Asian shares were mostly lower Monday after the U.S. carried out airstrikes and Iran retaliated.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, gained 3.6% to $78.76 per barrel, while U.S. benchmark crude added 3.5% to $73.97 per barrel.

After weeks of stagnation, a U.S.-brokered framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel soon will shift to technical discussions in Rome, an American official said.

The upcoming meeting in Rome on July 14 and 15 will address Israeli demands to form joint committees to oversee the implementation of the agreement. These would include separate committees for political affairs, security, and the management of so-called "good neighborly relations," pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday.

Ashleigh Hallam teaches English as a second language at her local library in Indiana. Soccer is now teaching her Spanish as a second language.

For her, this World Cup couldn't make more sense.

A wildfire killed 12 people in southern Spain as soaring temperatures gripped much of the country, Spanish authorities said early Friday.

Several victims of the fire in Los Gallardos were found inside burnt-out vehicles, local media reported. Six others have been injured in the blaze, which 150 firefighters were battling.

The Israeli prime minister’s office posted on the social platform X that the pair spoke on Thursday and that Netanyahu “raised the severity of the statements made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his people against the existence of the State of Israel.”

After this week’s NATO summit in Turkey, Trump indicated he may be ready to have the U.S. sell F-35 fighter jets to Erdogan’s country -- but he also said he’s not yet fully made up his mind.

France has finally returned 23 Syrian archaeological treasures that remained in the country for about 15 years after being loaned for an exhibition. Their return coincided with French President Emmanuel Macron's landmark visit to Damascus — the first by a major Western leader since the ouster of Bashar Assad in late 2024.

The artifacts, flown aboard Macron's presidential aircraft on Tuesday and returned to Syria's National Museum, include Roman bronze objects, Byzantine and Islamic-era pieces and a richly colored mosaic panel that once adorned the Umayyad Mosque. The collection was loaned in 2011 to an exhibition of Syrian antiquities at the Arab World Institute in Paris.

Germany has struck a deal with the United States to buy American-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and station them in Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced Thursday.

The German leader said the agreement on the long-range missiles, which are used to strike targets deep inside enemy territory, was reached this week on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey's capital, Ankara.

A deal between Lebanon and Israel was billed as paving the way for peace. But in Lebanon, it is deepening longtime divisions and raising fears of political paralysis or even a return to civil war.

The U.S.-brokered deal envisions an Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanon and an eventual peace agreement between the two countries — which technically remain in a state of war nearly 80 years after Israel's establishment. But the agreement says a full Israeli withdrawal will happen only after Hezbollah is disarmed, infuriating the Iran-backed militant group.