AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST

US tells UN it is pulling out of Paris climate deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has begun the process of pulling out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that he submitted a formal notice to the United Nations. That starts a withdrawal process that does not become official for a year. His statement touted America’s carbon pollution cuts and called the Paris deal an “unfair economic burden” to the U.S. economy.

Nearly 200 nations signed the climate deal in which each country provides its own goals to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that lead to climate change.

“In international climate discussions, we will continue to offer a realistic and pragmatic model — backed by a record of real world results — showing innovation and open markets lead to greater prosperity, fewer emissions, and more secure sources of energy,” Pompeo said in a statement.

The U.S. started the process with a hand-delivered letter, becoming the only country to withdraw. The United Nations will soon set out procedural details for what happens next, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

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Diplomat lays out White House campaign to oust her

WASHINGTON (AP) — It started with a warning to watch her back, that people were “looking to hurt” her. From there, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told House investigators, it escalated into a chilling campaign to fire her as President Donald Trump and his allies angled in Eastern Europe for political advantage at home.

Testimony from Yovanovitch, released Monday, offered a first word-for-word look at the closed-door House impeachment hearings. Inside, Democrats and Republicans are waging a pitched battle over what to make of Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine’s leaders to investigate political rival Joe Biden, Biden’s son and Democratic activities in the 2016 election.

The transcript came out on the same day that four Trump administration officials defied subpoenas to testify, acting on orders from a White House that is fighting the impeachment investigation with all its might. Among those refusing to testify: John Eisenberg, the lead lawyer at the National Security Council and, by some accounts, the man who ordered a rough transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s leader moved to a highly restricted computer system.

During nine hours of sometimes emotional testimony, Yovanovitch detailed efforts led by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies to push her out of her post. The career diplomat, who was recalled from her job in May on Trump’s orders, testified that a senior Ukrainian official told her that “I really needed to watch my back.”

While the major thrust of Yovanovitch’s testimony was revealed in her opening statement, Monday’s 317-page transcript provided new details.

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Turkey says it captured slain IS leader’s sister in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey captured the elder sister of the slain leader of the Islamic State group in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to a senior Turkish official, who called the arrest an intelligence “gold mine.”

Little is known about the sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Turkish official said the 65-year-old known as Rasmiya Awad is suspected of being affiliated with the extremist group. He did not elaborate.

Awad was captured in a raid Monday evening on a trailer container she was living in with her family near the town of Azaz in Aleppo province. The area is part of the region administered by Turkey after it carried out a military incursion to chase away IS militants and Kurdish fighters starting 2016. Allied Syrian groups manage the area known as the Euphrates Shield zone.

The official said the sister was with her husband, daughter-in-law and five children. The adults are being interrogated, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol.

“This kind of thing is an intelligence gold mine. What she knows about (IS) can significantly expand our understanding of the group and help us catch more bad guys,” the official said.

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Investigation: Lead in some Canadian water worse than Flint

MONTREAL (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have been unwittingly exposed to high levels of lead in their drinking water, with contamination in several cities consistently higher than they ever were in Flint, Michigan, according to an investigation that tested drinking water in hundreds of homes and reviewed thousands more previously undisclosed results.

Residents in some homes in Montreal, a cosmopolitan city an hour north of the U.S.-Canada border, and Regina, in the flat western prairies, are among those drinking and cooking with tap water with lead levels that exceed Canada’s federal guidelines. The investigation found some schools and day care centres had lead levels so high that researchers noted it could impact children’s health. Exacerbating the problem, many water providers aren’t testing at all.

It wasn’t the Canadian government that exposed the scope of this public health concern.

A yearlong investigation by more than 120 journalists from nine universities and 10 media organizations, including The Associated Press and the Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University in Montreal , collected test results that properly measure exposure to lead in 11 cities across Canada. Out of 12,000 tests since 2014, one-third — 33% — exceeded the national safety guideline of 5 parts per billion; 18% exceeded the U.S. limit of 15 ppb.

In a country that touts its clean, natural turquoise lakes, sparkling springs and rushing rivers, there are no national mandates to test drinking water for lead. And even if agencies do take a sample, residents are rarely informed of contamination.

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Lawyer: Trump’s phone records back details of woman’s claim

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s cellphone records show a call to a former “Apprentice” contestant on a day when she says he subjected her to unwanted kissing and groping, according to a court filing.

Records filed in Summer Zervos’ defamation suit and obtained Monday by The Associated Press indicate that Zervos got a call from Trump’s phone on a day in December 2007, when she says he rang to invite her to dinner. She says she went hoping for career advice and ended up being sexually assaulted.

The records also show a call to Zervos from Trump’s phone the next afternoon and calls from her to his phone in the following months. Her lawyers say the phone calls support that she’s telling the truth.

Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz said Monday that Zervos’ claims “are entirely meritless and not corroborated by any documents.”

Zervos, a California restaurateur, was on the Trump-hosted reality show “The Apprentice” in 2006. She says she later contacted him in hopes of furthering her career.

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Iran spins more centrifuges on US Embassy crisis anniversary

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran on Monday broke further away from its collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers by doubling the number of advanced centrifuges it operates, linking the decision to U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement over a year ago.

The announcement — which also included Iran saying it now has a prototype centrifuge that works 50 times faster than those allowed under the deal — came as demonstrators across the country marked the 40th anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover that started a 444-day hostage crisis.

By starting up these advanced centrifuges, Iran further cut into the one year that experts estimate Tehran would need to have enough material for building a nuclear weapon — if it chose to pursue one. Iran long has insisted its program is for peaceful purposes, though Western fears about its work led to the 2015 agreement that saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Tehran has gone from producing some 450 grams (1 pound) of low-enriched uranium a day to 5 kilograms (11 pounds), said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Iran now holds over 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, Salehi said. The deal had limited Iran to 300 kilograms (661 pounds).

Visiting Iran’s underground Natanz enrichment facility, Salehi dramatically pushed a button on a keyboard to start a chain of 30 IR-6 centrifuges as state television cameras filmed, increasing the number of working centrifuges to 60.

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More than 450 Oklahoma inmates walking out of prison doors

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — More than 450 inmates walked out the doors of prisons across Oklahoma on Monday as part of what state officials say is the largest single-day mass commutation in U.S. history.

The release of inmates, all with convictions for low-level drug and property crimes, resulted from a bill signed by new Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt. The bill retroactively applied misdemeanour sentences for simple drug possession and low-level property crimes that state voters approved in 2016.

Stitt has made reducing Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate one of his top priorities and has appointed reform-minded members to the state’s Pardon and Parole Board.

Releasing the inmates will save Oklahoma an estimated $11.9 million over the cost of continuing to keep them behind bars, according to the governor’s office.

The board last week considered 814 cases and recommended 527 inmates for commutation. However, 65 are being held on detainers, leaving about 462 inmates to be released on Monday.

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Dow hits record as stock market rally extends into 5th week

NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average returned to a record on Monday, joining other market gauges at all-time highs, as the stock market’s rally carried into a fifth week.

Oil producers, banks and other stocks that do well when the economy is strengthening again led the way. It’s a notable shift in leadership following months of struggles for what Wall Street calls “cyclical” stocks, which lagged due to worries about trade wars and the slowing global economy.

Behind the resurgence for cyclicals are rising hopes that the United States and China are making progress in negotiations on their trade dispute, or at least that they’re no longer making it worse. Reports last week also showed that the job market is continuing to grow, corporate profits aren’t doing as badly as Wall Street expected and interest rates will likely remain low for a while.

Even in manufacturing, which has been hit particularly hard by President Donald Trump’s trade war, investors saw some hopes that things may be hitting bottom soon.

The Dow climbed 114.75 points, or 0.4%, to 27,462.11 and surpassed its prior all-time high set in July.

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APNewsBreak: Airbnb agrees to provide host records to Hawaii

HONOLULU (AP) — Airbnb Inc. has agreed to provide Hawaii with records of many of its island hosts as the state tries to track down vacation rental operators who haven’t been paying their taxes.

Airbnb and the state Department of Taxation reached the agreement last week after negotiating the scope of a subpoena sought by the state. First Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe approved the agreement.

Ayabe still must rule on whether the state has met the requirements for serving the subpoena. A hearing before the judge has been scheduled for Wednesday.

The state needs the court’s permission to serve the subpoena because its investigation targets a group of taxpayers and not specific individuals.

“We are pleased to have reached a compromise with the Hawaii Department of Taxation that provides adequate data to help them enforce against individuals who they suspect may have skirted tax laws, while including safeguards to further hosts’ privacy,” Airbnb said in a statement.

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Penske buys Indianapolis Motor Speedway, IndyCar Series

Roger Penske was a car-loving, 14-year-old who regularly listened to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio when his father landed tickets to the 1951 race. They made the trek from Cleveland, and Penske fell in love when he saw the cars zipping around Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Now he owns the iconic speedway, its hallowed grounds, “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” the IndyCar Series and all its properties in a stunning deal announced Monday. By early next year, Penske Entertainment Corp. will take over all those entities owned by the Hulman family for 74 years in one of the biggest transactions in the history of motorsports.

“The bug of motor racing got in my blood,” Penske recalled about that day with his father, Jay. “I hope my dad is looking down at me and this group and saying ‘Son, you did a good job.’”

The sprawling, 110-year-old speedway and its famed, 2 1/2 -mile oval track is one of the most famous venues in sports, and crowds for its showcase race every May, the first one dating to 1911, used to swell to more than 400,000 people. The speedway with its famous pagoda tower, Gasoline Alley garage area and massive grandstands was a dilapidated mess in 1945 when Tony Hulman bought it and brought racing back to the corner of 16th Street and Georgetown Avenue after a four-year absence following World War II.

The speedway itself spun off multiple subsidiaries, including the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions, which also are being acquired by Penske Entertainment, a subsidiary of Penske Corp.