U.S., Cuba sign deal to restore flightsHAVANA — The United States and Cuba on Tuesday signed a deal restoring commercial air traffic for the first time in five decades, allowing of dozens of new daily flights to bring hundreds of thousands more American travelers a year to the island as early as this fall.Immediately after the signing, the U.S. Department of Transportation opened bidding by American air carriers on as many as 110 U.S.-Cuba flights a day — more than five times the current number. All flights operating between the two countries today are charters.Barring other major announcements, the restart of commercial flights will be the most significant development in U.S.-Cuba trade since Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties after a half-century of Cold War opposition.The Obama administration is eager to make rapid progress on building trade and diplomatic ties with Cuba before the president leaves office. The coming weeks are seen as particularly crucial to building momentum ahead of a trip he hopes to make to Havana by the end of March.

Iran won’t freeze oil output levelsTEHRAN, Iran — Iran today snubbed a proposal agreed to by four oil powerhouses to cap their crude output if other producers do the same, with a senior Oil Ministry official saying Tehran has no intention of freezing oil output levels.Mahdi Asali, Iran’s OPEC envoy, said his country will in fact keep increasing crude exports until it reaches levels attained before international sanctions were imposed on Tehran over its nuclear program.The remarks come a day after four nations — Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela — conditionally agreed in Qatar to cap their output at last month’s levels to halt a slide that has pushed oil prices to their lowest point in more than a decade. Oil prices recently plummeted to under $30 a barrel, the lowest in 13 years.