New talks are ‘last chance’ for Iran to forge a deal and avoid escalation of US strikes, Trump says

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has played this hand before during the 5-month-old Iran war — but this time, he insists it’s different.

The president on Monday said that new talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of U.S. strikes on the country.

Trump, speaking at the Oval Office, said he expects negotiations will focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and create a pathway for Iran to address the United States’ concerns about its nuclear program. He told reporters they would likely learn about the status of the negotiations “today or tomorrow.”

“The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearization,” the Republican president said. “And that will take a little while.”

While Trump has reveled in the U.S. military decimating layers of Tehran’s leadership and devastating its air force and navy, Iran is betting it can outlast Trump as he faces diminished stockpiles of munitions and the difficulty of executing a war that’s unpopular with the American electorate ahead of November’s midterm election.

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GOP holdouts say they will back Blanche’s attorney general nomination after striking deal over fund

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican senators who threatened to block acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation to lead the Justice Department said Monday that they will support his nomination, ending an impasse over plans to create a fund to compensate allies of President Donald Trump.

The endorsement from GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis paves the way for the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday after the Justice Department and lawmakers reached a deal to formally rescind the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” proposed to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.

Cornyn and Tillis had refused to back Blanche’s bid for the permanent post without official confirmation killing the fund meant to compensate people who believe they were unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Blanche’s written order, issued late Sunday, came after the days of negotiations between the Justice Department and the Republican senators who are leaving Capitol Hill when their terms end in January.

“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn, of Texas, and Tillis, of North Carolina, said in a statement.

Blanche has repeatedly said that the Justice Department was scrapping plans for the fund, which sparked bipartisan outcry over the possibility that violent rioters who attacked police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be considered for payments. But skeptical lawmakers said they were concerned that could be revived without a commitment in writing, especially because Trump has continued to defend the idea.

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25 states sue over Trump’s new tariffs, calling them ‘pretext’ to replace his old ones

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twenty-five states sued the Trump administration Monday over its latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing import taxes the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The United States last month imposed double-digit tariffs on 59 countries and the European Union, charging that they had not done enough to crack down on imports produced by forced labor. The new tariffs took effect just as the clock ran out on temporary tariffs President Donald Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat.

“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Joining New York in the lawsuit announced Monday are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive American manufacturing, last year overturned decades of U.S. policy that favored lower tariffs and ever-freer trade. Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying America’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

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Washington state fires destroy hundreds of buildings and force Spokane-area residents to evacuate

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Some residents returned to devastated neighborhoods in eastern Washington state to find their homes leveled by wildfires that erupted across a parched landscape over the weekend, covering yards in charred debris. In some cases, only chimneys were left standing.

The fires in and around Spokane, the state’s second-largest city, were among the most destructive in state history. About 700 buildings had been destroyed — a number that was expected to climb — and some 67,000 people were under evacuation orders. The cause was under investigation.

“There’s nothing to save,” Miriam Sim, 76, said Monday as she and her husband, Daniel Sim, surveyed the ruins of the home where they had lived since 2005.

“At our age, do we want to rebuild?” her husband asked.

The fires jumped roads and rivers and had burned about 12.5 square miles (about 32 square kilometers) by Monday. The sky filled with smoke and haze. Calmer winds and lower temperatures arrived to help firefighters, but it was expected to be hot and dry again by midweek.

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Michigan reports the first 2 US deaths related to a diarrhea-causing parasite

DETROIT (AP) — Two people have died in the cyclospora outbreak in Michigan, state health officials announced Monday, the first deaths confirmed in the U.S. related to the microscopic parasite.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said both people had underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by the intestinal illness and dehydration. The department said it would not provide additional information about the deaths.

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.

The CDC says the illness, called cyclosporiasis, is rarely deadly.

The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces. In the past, people have been infected by consuming fruits or vegetables that were exposed to feces-contaminated irrigation water.

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Authorities seek a motive in the mass shooting at an Idaho In-N-Out Burger

A driver charging his electric taxi and a former law enforcement officer who tried to intervene were among the seven people wounded in a mass shooting at an Idaho fast food restaurant that also left three people dead, according to friends and relatives of the two men.

The attack Saturday at a new In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls ended when the gunman, identified by police as 24-year-old Chad Williams, shot and killed himself. On Monday, police were still trying to determine why Williams carried out the attack, which happened early in the afternoon in a busy shopping plaza in the southern Idaho city.

Many details about Williams’ life were still unknown Monday, but an initial search of court records in Idaho and Arizona, where he used to live, didn’t show any criminal cases matching his name and birth date.

Elijah Moseley, who lived across the hall from Williams in a College of Southern Idaho dorm a few years ago, described him as “an introvert” and “a pretty chill guy.”

“I was never scared or weirded out by him,” he said.

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Hundreds of migrant children are stranded in Spain’s Ceuta after mass crossing

CEUTA, Spain (AP) — The teenage girl made it through the waves to Spanish territory. Her little brother did not, drowning in the Mediterranean, while their mother disappeared in the chaos when tens of thousands of people surged through the breakwater, trying to leave Morocco behind.

The tragic story of a 17-year-old from Tangier is representative of the plight of many of the more than 800 minors who four days after the collective push by migrants into Ceuta face a scary present and an uncertain future.

She told an Associated Press photojournalist how she and her family joined the massive crowd that tried to swim around a border fence to reach the Spanish territory on Thursday. Like many, she said they did so seeking better opportunities. The AP is withholding her identity because she is a minor in a vulnerable situation.

She described how she saw Spanish police pull the body of her 8-year-old brother from the water.

She made it to the shore but became separated from her mother, and has spent the last four days on her own. She said some locals gave her food and some clothing, with one woman taking her into her home so she could bathe. She then went to a center for youths run by the government for some help, but found it was full.

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Trump says Pirro ‘folded like an umbrella’ in bid to drop Reflecting Pool vandalism charges

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella” in moving to drop charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Speaking at an unrelated Oval Office event, Trump ducked questions about whether he’d fire Pirro, a former Fox News host and longtime ally he handpicked as top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital. But the president kept up his drumbeat of sharp criticism, saying he remained disappointed by her assessment that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction, not vandalism.

“Frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question after he signed an executive order for military spouses. “I don’t know what the hell happened.”

The move to dismiss charges against David Hearn was an embarrassing setback for the Justice Department and marked a rare moment during Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.

After initially posting on social media over the weekend, “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro,” Trump was still fuming two days later, insisting for several minutes that vandalism had marred the troubled project.

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US stocks rally near a record as falling oil prices ease Wall Street’s worries about inflation

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market rallied to the edge of its all-time high on Monday after easing oil prices helped calm Wall Street’s worries that inflation could get even worse.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% and is just 0.1% below its record set earlier this summer. It was coming off a frenetic July, where it swung up and down as oil prices shot higher because of the war with Iran, before ultimately ending the month just about where it started.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measures a narrower slice of the U.S. stock market, climbed 693 points, or 1.3%, to an all-time high, while the Nasdaq composite leaped 2.1%.

Stocks got a lift as the price for a barrel of Brent crude sank 4.7% to $83.77. It dropped after President Donald Trump said over the weekend that he decided to hold off on new strikes against Iran at the urging of allies in the region.

Brent’s price careened between $72 and $102 last month as worries rose and fell about when the war with Iran would allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again to deliver crude to customers worldwide. The latest acquiescence by Trump helped to ease worries about the global flow of crude, and Treasury yields correspondingly fell in the bond market.

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MLB trade deadline: Red Sox, Phillies, Padres are the biggest buyers at the buzzer

The Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies took big swings Monday ahead of baseball’s trade deadline, with the Red Sox adding three-time All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman a few hours after the Phillies picked up three-time batting champion Luis Arraez.

The pair of aggressive moves highlighted a hectic day of swaps, featuring dozens of deals in the hours leading up to Monday’s 6 p.m. EDT deadline. Among Monday’s other fireworks: the Houston Astros added veteran outfielder Daulton Varsho from Toronto in exchange for right-hander Spencer Arrighetti, and the Chicago Cubs got pitcher Clay Holmes from the New York Mets.

The San Diego Padres made multiple moves to deepen their pitching staff, picking up former Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray in a deal with the San Francisco Giants and right-hander Casey Mize from the Detroit Tigers.

The Los Angeles Dodgers woke up already looking like the deadline’s biggest winners after adding two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal to a loaded roster Sunday. The Dodgers are chasing a third straight World Series title.

Here are Monday’s biggest deals.