AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

US banning dairy products, most alcohol and motorcycles from Canada in growing trade war

TORONTO (AP) — The United States is banning the import of some dairy products and motorcycles from Canada along with most alcoholic beverages, the White House said Tuesday, as part of a trade war that shows little sign of cooling off.

The ban will take effect Sept. 29 and comes after retaliatory tariffs promised by Canada kicked in earlier Tuesday on $20 billion in U.S. imports. Canada had responded to tariff moves by U.S. President Donald Trump after trade talks between the countries broke down last month.

Trump also moved to shut Canadian products out of large, long-term U.S. government contracts and directed the U.S. General Services Administration to declare Canadian products ineligible for those contracts until Canada allows “full and fair reciprocity″ for American products.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada’s strategy was about becoming more independent and vowed to speed those efforts. “It’s about ensuring that no country can hold us hostage. And that we can live how we want to live,” he said.

The rupture has upended one of the world’s closest relationships. On Aug. 22, the U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on about 5% of Canadian imports, charging that Canada had unfairly treated the American dairy, alcoholic beverage and auto industries.

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Families grieve in the ruins of an Iranian school where a US strike killed dozens of children

MINAB, Iran (AP) — The sun set over this southern Iranian city, and Heydar Sadeghi was where he can be found almost every evening: on a bench next to the shattered remains of his grandson’s school. His face was soaked with tears.

A banner strung around the rubble showed the faces of children and teachers killed here by an American airstrike on Feb. 28, the first day of the war on Iran. Among them are Sadeghi’s 11-year-old grandson Hami and the boy’s mother, Neda Salehizadeh.

“I searched the bodies for my kids, thinking maybe one would be among them,” Sadeghi said Monday evening as he recounted how he rushed to the school in the moments after the explosions. He called out their names, saying, “‘Come with me! I’ve come to get you.’ They weren’t there,” he said, weeping.

The Shajareh Tayyebeh school has become a place to wrestle with grief and preserve the memories of the dead. Here, relatives try to comprehend the incomprehensible — how around 120 of their children could be snuffed out, just after they’d been dropped off for a day of classes.

At least one U.S. missile hit the school that morning in Minab, according to an Associated Press investigation, but there has been no final accounting of what happened. Iranian state media have said 168 people were killed in the strike, most of them children.

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Iran is forging a new ring of proxies to threaten US allies in the Gulf, officials say

CAIRO (AP) — In July, Saudi Arabia and the United States bombed Iran-backed militias in Iraq after blaming them for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities that had been claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, another Iranian ally.

Now, regional officials tell The Associated Press that the Houthis helped the Iraqi militias plan and execute the two-day swarm attack, showing a new level of coordination.

Iran spent decades building up armed groups on Israel’s frontiers that suffered major losses in the wars following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza. Israel battered the Palestinian militants as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which had been Iran’s most powerful ally.

Regional officials and experts say Iran is now using the Iraqi militias and the Houthis to threaten Saudi Arabia and other American allies in the Gulf in order to drive up the costs of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel in February.

It is a risky strategy. A wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities on Tuesday threatened to reignite full-scale war with the kingdom. Iraq has ordered militias to disarm by the end of this month, though powerful Iran-backed groups have refused to do so. A new American effort to economically isolate Iran could spark further escalation.

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Oil rises past $100 a barrel after the latest wave of Middle East attacks

NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time in almost six weeks after attacks on oil facilities and ships in the Middle East threatened to debilitate an already weakened supply chain.

The most heavily traded contract for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, settled at $97.89 before jumping 2.4% to $100.29 early Wednesday.

U.S. benchmark crude gained 1.9% to $94.77 a barrel.

When oil prices spike, prices of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel also rise. That can increase the cost of traveling and of goods that must be transported quickly like fresh food or shipped long distances like furniture and appliances.

Markets reacted after the U.S. military reported striking five Iranian tankers in response to attempted missile attacks on a Navy warship and after attacks by an Iranian-backed Houthi rebel group ignited fires at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.

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A Russian strike tore apart a couple’s home on the eve of their wedding. They still got married

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — On the eve of her wedding, Liudmyla Ryzhak pressed her delicately embroidered dress, laid out a full white tulle skirt and her soon-to-be husband’s traditionally patterned shirt, then hung them on the bedroom door.

After repeated delays caused by the war with Russia, she was only hours away from marrying her partner, a 43-year-old Ukrainian soldier, in a ceremony in the capital.

But as the couple slept, a Russian strike hit a warehouse across the street from their building, sending a blast wave through the apartment and threatening to stop the wedding scheduled for Tuesday morning.

The pair were soon digging their wedding clothes out of the rubble. Ryzhak, 33, had to pull her skirt from beneath the debris, shaking off pieces of broken glass.

The strike came soon after U.S. envoys visited Ukraine on Sunday, a trip that brought a lull in Russian attacks. The assaults then resumed with drones and missiles. Explosions were heard in Kyiv for almost five hours overnight. Strikes continued during the day Tuesday.

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Former US Sen. John E. Sununu to face US Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire Senate race

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Republican John E. Sununu and Democrat Chris Pappas will compete for an open U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire in a race that has emerged as one of a handful around the country that could determine control of the chamber in November.

Sununu, a former U.S. senator, and Pappas, a member of the U.S. House, are vying to replace U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, whose decision not to seek reelection created a cascade of competitive races. Both entered their respective party primaries as strong front-runners and now have just eight weeks to make their case to general election voters.

Republicans view the seat as an opportunity to regain a foothold in a region long dominated by Democrats in Congress. Democrats, meanwhile, need a net gain of four seats to retake the chamber, and keeping New Hampshire in their column is a critical part of that effort.

In other top races, Stefany Shaheen, Shaheen’s daughter, won a close primary and will face Republican Anthony DiLorenzo in the race to fill Pappas’ open seat in the 1st Congressional District. The 2nd Congressional District will feature a matchup between U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander, a Democrat seeking her second term, and Republican Lily Tang Williams.

Pappas, who is giving up his seat in the 1st Congressional District after four terms, defeated four other candidates, including democratic socialist Karishma Manzur, who had been gaining on him in recent weeks.

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Holdout in Lindsay Clancy trial said he had reasonable doubt but still wouldn’t acquit, juror says

A lone juror blocked Lindsay Clancy from being acquitted, insisting he wouldn’t find her not guilty by reason of insanity despite saying during deliberations that he had reasonable doubt, the jury’s foreperson said in a TV interview Tuesday.

The interview with Boston’s NBC10 aired four days after a judge declared a mistrial when jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the question of whether Clancy was criminally responsible for killing her three young children in 2023.

Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, never disputed that she killed the children. Her attorney said she had lost control of her mind due to a rare condition called postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

Prosecutors said Clancy knew what she was doing and acted deliberately when she strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan Clancy with exercise bands. They said she contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family.

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Sen. John Fetterman’s isolation from Democrats grows stark in Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Around this time two years ago, Sen. John Fetterman was in high demand on the campaign trail, going county-to-county in Pennsylvania to help Democrats up and down the ballot.

Now, after two years of crossing swords with Democrats and backing some of President Donald Trump’s priorities, he’s nowhere on the stump.

No Democrat in the state wants to be seen with him. His approval ratings are better with Republicans — far better — than they are with Democrats. And a shadow primary of sorts is taking shape for Fetterman’s Senate seat in 2028, even if he runs again.

Fetterman has acknowledged his isolation in the party as he maintains staunch support of Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizes left-wing candidates who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. He’s often gone his own way in the Senate, voting repeatedly with Republicans to end the shutdown last year while supporting multiple Trump nominations and opposing efforts to end the war in Iran.

Still, Fetterman has repeatedly said that he wouldn’t switch parties because of his support for labor unions, LGBT rights and other issues held dear by the left.

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With AI memes, Trump promotes mythical version of himself as challenges stack up ahead of midterms

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the real world, President Donald Trump is struggling to stop inflation, rout the Iranian government and restore American manufacturing with tariffs.

However, it’s a different story in the fantastical vision that he shares with supporters on social media. Over Labor Day weekend, Trump and the White House unleashed an extraordinarily heavy torrent of memes that portrayed the president as singularly powerful.

One video depicted Trump as a superhero wielding Green Lantern’s ring to effortlessly build a wall to keep out migrants and erect a slew of busy factories. Another post showed him in a U.S. hockey uniform looming over Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as Carney cowered on the ice. And another had Trump on a military ship as it bombarded an enemy fleet.

Trump’s allure has always relied on a mythical version of himself, from “The Apprentice” to the White House, but the gap between meme and reality has become glaringly stark ahead of the midterm elections. Most U.S. adults are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy and say the Iran war hasn’t been worth it, but Trump has responded with outlandish images of himself as unstoppable and omnipotent.

Some of the pictures are generated with artificial intelligence, and the administration has previously defended the memes as funny and their critics as humorless. Yet the stakes right now are serious for congressional Republicans who have tied their own fate to a president with low approval numbers. Trump’s party will put him center stage at an unusual midterm convention on Wednesday and Thursday in Dallas in hopes of stoking voters’ enthusiasm.

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Shelton ends Alcaraz’s title reign in late-night marathon, will face Tiafoe in US Open semis

NEW YORK (AP) — Ben Shelton had gone toe-to-toe with Carlos Alcaraz for five exhausting sets and finally at 3:33 a.m. Wednesday came the chance to end the U.S. Open champion’s title reign.

Shelton fired an ace at 146 mph, a ball that Alcaraz couldn’t have gotten back even with fresh legs.

That gave Shelton a 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) victory in a marathon tussle that was the latest-finishing match in U.S. Open history.

“I’m tired. It was a war,” Shelton said. “Carlos is one of the greatest champions of our sport. It was the most enjoyable match I’ve had in my career, for sure.”

Alcaraz had his 18-match winning streak in Grand Slam tournaments ended in a match that lasted 4 hours, 28 minutes, after he fought deep into the night and early into the next morning in a bid to get his hands on the trophy again.