News

Beirut Wins US Flight Access, But Carriers Aren’t Sold Yet

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has pressed Washington for reconstruction funds and army backing in a recent White House meeting.

Published

4 months ago

July 22, 2026

Nour Nasir

beirut wins us flight access but carriers aren't sold yet

US carriers can fly to Lebanon again, 41 years after Washington closed the route. What they cannot yet do is sell tickets.

President Donald Trump directed his administration on July 21 to lift the ban on direct US–Lebanon services, reversing restrictions that have been in force since 1985. The order followed a White House meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun — the first visit by a Lebanese head of state in nearly two decades — and Trump framed it as a way for Americans to reach Lebanon more easily.

The distance between permission and first departures is wide, however. The Federal Aviation Administration said it “looks forward to working with airlines and our interagency partners” to carry out the directive safely, but published no timetable. Before any carrier receives clearance, Beirut’s airport must satisfy US security requirements. Neither Trump nor the agency set an implementation date.

The case of Venezuela shows how long that process can run. Trump ordered passenger restrictions on Caracas lifted in January, but American Airlines did not restart Miami flights until late April, roughly three months later. So although presidential clearance is enough to begin a regulatory process, it’s not enough to create a firm operating schedule.

The commercial decision for operators is a separate hurdle. American, Delta and United have all suspended Tel Aviv services amid regional instability, keeping aircraft and crew planning under constant review. Each will weigh demand, security and fleet availability before committing a jet to Beirut. So far none has named a gateway, frequency or launch month.

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For Aoun, aviation was one thread in a broader appeal. He pressed Washington for reconstruction aid, economic support and backing for the Lebanese Armed Forces — which he called “the backbone of security and stability,” and which has drawn more than $3 billion (AED11 billion) in US military assistance since 2006. Trump said officials had “concrete plans” to help operations in southern Lebanon.

Direct flights would strip a mandatory extra connection from every itinerary and cut the missed-connection risk that comes with intermediate hubs. Whether that access arrives as daily, weekly or seasonal service now rests with the airlines.

News

ESET Bets On Specialized Security AI At 0.5% The Training Cost

ESET says NeoCortex can estimate an attacker’s next move, with a kill switch and human oversight built in to keep it from going rogue.

Published

2 days ago

November 4, 2026

Dana Saadeh

eset bets on specialized security ai at 0.5% the training cost

A sign-in anomaly, a suspicious process launch and an unusual connection may look harmless alone. Together, they can describe an intrusion that is hard for security to teams to piece together.

To solve that problem, ESET announced ESET NeoCortex on November 4, 2026: a specialized foundational AI model for cybersecurity. It powers ESET LiveCortex, available within the ESET PROTECT Platform, which connects fragmented security signals and turns them into actionable incidents.

Filtering is the main selling point, with LiveCortex processing billions of raw telemetry events daily, and just 0.00111% of them contributing to incidents presented to customers. The aim is less alert fatigue and more analyst time spent on threats that matter.

NeoCortex is built on world-model architecture, learning how digital environments behave and how events relate. ESET says that lets it reconstruct missing incident context, recognize similar past cases and estimate an attacker’s likely next step – what the company calls “minus-one-day defense,” a chance to intervene before the next stage unfolds. ESET points to Black October, the week leading up to October 25, 2026, when critical security issues affecting PHP, Linux, GitLab and other key systems demanded rapid, prioritized responses, as the kind of moment where that context matters.

ESET’s internal research also suggests a specialized model like NeoCortex can be trained at up to 200 times lower cost than a large general reasoning model, while delivering more accurate, defense-focused results. The company credits optimized training, a focus on cybersecurity vocabulary, lower computing requirements and privately owned hardware.

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“AI is accelerating both cyberattacks and cyberdefenses. With ESET NeoCortex, we are applying our AI investment to develop specialized foundational cybersecurity intelligence that remains under our control and strengthens, rather than replaces, human expertise,” said Juraj Malcho, Chief Technology Officer at ESET.

As part of the design, NeoCortex forms part of a layered architecture combining specialized models, deterministic controls, correlation logic, validation, auditability and expert human oversight. Safeguards include restricted sandboxes, read-only tools, continuous monitoring, defined usage and token limits, a kill switch and human oversight of critical response decisions. The model is also developed and self-hosted on ESET’s own infrastructure, which the company says reduces exposure to shifts among third-party AI providers, including commercial and geopolitical ones.