By AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he has decided to nominate Jared Isaacman to serve as his NASA administrator, months after withdrawing the tech billionaire’s nomination because of concerns about his political leanings.

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Trump announced in late May that he had decided to withdraw Isaacman after a “thorough review” of his “prior associations.” Weeks after the withdrawal, Trump went further in expressing his concerns about Isaacman’s Republican credentials.

At the time, Trump acknowledged that he thought Isaacman “was very good,” but had become “surprised to learn” that Isaacman was a “ blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before.”

Isaacman had the endorsement of Trump’s former DOGE adviser and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. The president and Musk had a very public falling out earlier this year but are now on better terms.

Last week, Trump told reporters he and Musk have spoken “on and off” since sitting together at conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s funeral last month in Arizona and that their relationship is “good.”

Trump made no mention of his previous decision to nominate and then withdraw Isaacman in his Tuesday evening announcement of the re-nomination on his Truth Social platform. And the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s decision to reverse course.

“This evening, I am pleased to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of NASA,” Trump posted. “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been serving as interim NASA administrator. The president on Tuesday praised Duffy for doing an “incredible job.”

Isaacman, CEO and founder of credit card-processing company Shift4, has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight with SpaceX.

He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk. SpaceX has extensive contracts with NASA.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved Isaacman’s nomination in late April and a vote by the full Senate had been expected when Trump announced he was yanking the nomination.

In his own social media post Tuesday, Isaacman thanked Trump for the nomination and the “space-loving community.” He made no mention of the earlier turmoil.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A UPS cargo plane crashed Tuesday at a Louisville, Kentucky airport where the company operates its largest package delivery hub.

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UPS calls the giant center Worldport.

Here’s what to know about its enormous scale:

Processes 2 million packages per day

The facility at Muhammad Ali International Airport sprawls across the equivalent of 90 football fields.

It processes 2 million packages per day in a facility. It has the ability to handle even more: It has the capacity for 416,000 packages and documents per hour.

A time-lapse video UPS posted on YouTube shows planes taxiing to and from special cargo gates. Workers unload containers packed with cardboard boxes. Other employees load the boxes onto a conveyor belt, which delivers packages to workers who load them into other containers.

A UPS town

Some 20,000 people work at the center, making UPS the largest employer in the Louisville area, the company said on its website.

Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said everyone in town knows someone who works at UPS.

“My heart goes out to everybody at UPS because this is a UPS town,” Ruhe said. “My cousin’s a UPS pilot. My aide’s tennis partner is a UPS pilot. The intern in my office works overnight at UPS to pay for college.”

Hundreds of flights per day

More than 300 flights take off and land from the facility each day, the company said on its website.

The center has room for 125 aircraft to park.

Louisville’s location in Kentucky puts it within four hours of flight time to 95% of the U.S. population. It serves 200 countries around the world.

UPS flies six different types of planes in the U.S.

It has 27 MD-11s, which is the model that crashed on Tuesday. It also flies the A300-600, which is an Airbus, and four different types of Boeing jets: 757-200, 767-300, 747-400 and 747-8.

Expansion plans

In 2022, the company said it would begin building a new aircraft hangar in Louisville that would be large enough to park two 747 planes, which are the largest in its fleet, and eight new flight simulators.

UPS Healthcare, which provides shipments for clinical trials and shipments to medical care patients and other services was due to get two new buildings in the expansion.

UPS gets permission to fly its own planes in 1988

UPS got its start in Seattle in 1907, when two teenagers started American Messenger Co. The name United Parcel Service debuted in 1919.

The company won Federal Aviation Administration approval to operate its own aircraft in 1988.

Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS today employs about 490,000 people worldwide.

This version of the story corrects the size of the facility to say it’s the equivalent of 90 football fields instead of 10.

A major investment in southern Minnesota’s public safety infrastructure is officially underway.

Gov. Tim Walz and local leaders broke ground Monday afternoon on a new Bureau of Criminal Apprehension regional office and forensic laboratory in Mankato.

The $67 million project is designed to speed evidence processing, expand forensic capabilities and provide advanced training opportunities for law enforcement across the region. Once operational, the planned 56,000-square-foot facility, at 2350 Bassett Drive next to the Blue Earth County Justice Center, is expected to process up to 6,000 cases and 12,000 pieces of evidence annually, Walz said.

“While this will speed up processing time for crime scene investigations in southern Minnesota, it’ll have a cascading effect of taking pressure off the St. Paul BCA lab,” he said. “This is all part of making sure we’re able to process those crime scenes, get the evidence necessary, make sure it goes to the courts and we’re able to make sure that safety is the top priority.”

The facility will provide faster turnaround times for DNA, firearms and drug testing for local law enforcement who drive or ship evidence hundreds of miles to St. Paul for testing — a process that adds delays to investigations and court cases. Walz said an estimated 50 agents, forensic scientists and support staff will be housed at the new lab, creating new specialized jobs in the Mankato area while reducing the reliance on the Twin Cities facility.

Blue Earth County Sheriff Jeff Wersal said the new facility will allow officers to remain in their communities while ensuring faster evidence analysis and more efficient case management.

“To have that literally right in our backyard is going to be great, not only for us, but for the chiefs and sheriffs around the state that no longer have to make that trip again to St. Paul,” Wersal said.

The new regional office will serve as a hub for professional development, BCA Supt. Drew Evans said. Training rooms capable of accommodating up to 60 students will host law enforcement instruction in areas such as crime scene investigation, leadership and digital forensics. The agency trains between 6,000 and 9,000 students statewide each year, and he said the new site will make those opportunities far more accessible for officers in southern Minnesota.

The Mankato lab also is expected to strengthen partnerships between the agency and Minnesota State University, helping to develop the next generation of public safety professionals.

“What we’re working on as part of this is to have regionalization, so that areas like this can continue to thrive, so those partnerships can be there, so those specialized services can be born across the entire state,” Evans said.

Evans said the regional lab is a development five years in the making and fulfills a key component of the $887 million infrastructure bill signed by Walz in January.

Construction of the facility is expected to be completed in early 2027, with move-in planned for March of that year.

“The BCA’s strength lies in its people. The agents, forensic scientists, analysts and support staff who bring specialized investigative and scientific resources to southern Minnesota,” said Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson. “Their work often happens behind the scenes, but their impact is seen in every community that becomes safer because of their efforts, from crime scene response to forensic analysis to technology-driven investigations.”