A woman who strangled her three-year-old daughter to death in Ecuador for knocking over a television has been sentenced to 34 years and six months, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The woman, identified only as Rosa L., choked the little girl and killed her after she accidentally knocked down the television in Chimborazo in March, prosecutors said.

The agency in charge of U.S. transportation security came under renewed fire Tuesday as a report revealed that American airports had hired dozens of people with terror links.

The Transportation Security Agency is already reeling after a recent Department of Homeland Security report found that investigators could sneak fake bombs and weaponry through security with a 95 percent success rate.

American diplomats will not meet with a visiting delegation from the Muslim Brotherhood, designated as a terrorist organization by the regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

But State Department spokesman Jeffrey Rathke said America would still engage with the Brotherhood, whose members are visiting Washington on a private trip.

The first bodies from the Germanwings plane that was deliberately crashed in the French Alps were repatriated to Germany on Tuesday.

A special flight operated by Lufthansa carried the remains of 44 Germans, among the 150 onboard when the jet crashed on March 24, from the southern French city of Marseille to Duesseldorf in western Germany.

Former U.S. House speaker Dennis Hastert, who was once second in line to the presidency, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to lying to the FBI in an attempt to cover up alleged past misdeeds. 

Hastert was allegedly making massive payments to a former high school student whom he is said to have sexually abused decades ago, law enforcement officials told local media.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it sent live anthrax to a lab in Britain, one of a growing number of places where the U.S. military mistakenly shipped the potentially lethal bacteria.

The lab in Britain along with another facility in Massachusetts brought the total number of laboratories that have received live anthrax samples to 68, and an investigation into the case is still underway, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.

The White House on Tuesday rejected suggestions that President Barack Obama had deliberately ignored the Iraqi prime minister at a G7 summit in Germany.

News footage emerged from the summit showing an apparently eager-to-talk Haider al-Abadi awkwardly sitting down next to Obama, only to be shown the U.S. president's back.

Turkey's usually highly loquacious President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made no spoken comment since his party lost its parliamentary majority in weekend elections, prompting intrigue and mockery in opposition media.

Erdogan's silence since the elections has surprised many in Turkey who are used to seeing him deliver several speeches a day in rallies or television programs, lashing out at opponents.

The White House press room was briefly evacuated and a Secret Service sniffer dog deployed Tuesday delaying a scheduled briefing.

Journalists, including an AFP reporter, were escorted out as a security sweep was performed.

The Islamic State group claimed to have seized full control Tuesday of the Libyan city of Sirte from the Fajr Libya militia, including a power plant, according to a U.S. monitor.

SITE Intelligence Group said the jihadist group had published photographs of "IS fighters engaged in clashes, sitting atop heavy guns, exploring the power plant and town, as well as bodies of dead Fajr Libya fighters."