BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s president will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday to wrap up a four-day visit to Washington, in a bid to bring about long-term calm in the war-torn country after months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.

Joseph Aoun’s landmark meeting with Trump comes as Lebanon and Israel continue to hold rare direct talks mediated by Washington. Lebanon hopes they will result in Israeli troops withdrawing from large swaths of southern Lebanon that they currently occupy, and for the Lebanese military to receive support to assert full control in areas where Hezbollah militants had held sway.

Lebanon and Israel announced a “framework agreement” on June 26, setting a plan for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon as well as the disarmament of Hezbollah, which for decades had a strong presence in the area. It also lays out steps toward an eventual peace agreement between both countries, which have never held formal diplomatic ties and have been nominally in a state of war for nearly 80 years after Israel’s establishment.

The U.S. State Department announced Monday that operations in three villages deemed part of a “pilot zone” had begun, without giving details on what that entailed. The three villages, Froun, Srifa and Zawtar al-Gharbieh, are not under Israeli military control. Neither Lebanon’s nor Israel’s militaries and political leadership immediately issued statements following the announcement.

Aoun met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, who said Washington will continue to endorse the Lebanese agreement and support the agreement’s full implementation. Rubio described the meeting as “very positive” and warned that Lebanon will “never be fully at peace” as long as the Hezbollah issue is not resolved.

“How do you replace Hezbollah? You defeat and replace them with a government that is strong enough to be the sole force of arms in the country,” Rubio said after the meeting. Skeptics in Lebanon fear that a military confrontation with Hezbollah could lead to a civil war, as government officials have also urged for investment into the country’s battered infrastructure to empower the weakened state, which Rubio echoed.

“This is not just about military stuff,” he added. “This is about how can we attract more U.S. and international investment into Lebanon.”

The Lebanese military last week increased its presence in some of the areas expected to be included in the pilot zone, including the three villages, with troops patrolling and setting up checkpoints. Though recent talks in Rome have signaled that the agreement’s implementation will begin soon, Israeli troops have not withdrawn from the areas under control.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, have said they plan to keep forces long term in a “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has dismissed the direct talks brokered by the United States and instead backed Washington’s talks with their key ally and patron Iran to end their war, which also includes ending the war in Lebanon as a condition to bring back calm.

Lebanon’s government came to power on a reformist platform in early 2025, vowing to disarm all non-state groups including Hezbollah. It blames Hezbollah for dragging the country into another war with Israel in March when the militant group fired several rockets toward northern Israel after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

Beirut’s leadership, however, has been critical of Israel’s subsequent ground invasion and massive aerial campaign in the country, which killed over 4,000 people and displaced 1.2 million others. While grappling with stark political opposition from Hezbollah and allies within the deeply divided country, Lebanon’s leadership insists that Israeli withdrawal and international financial support for Lebanon’s cash-strapped army is crucial for a sustainable security solution.

Powerball ticket sales in the United Kingdom will begin Tuesday, giving players across the Atlantic a chance at winning the same massive jackpot that U.S. players already play for — with the same minuscule odds.

The expansion, first announced in April through an agreement between the Multi-State Lottery Association in the U.S. and Allwyn UK, will mark the first time a lottery outside the U.S. contributes to the Powerball jackpot. The expansion will allow U.K. players to play for much larger jackpots than are now available at lotteries in the country and Europe.

Wednesday night’s drawing will be the first Powerball drawing open to players in the U.K.

The largest Powerball payout was just over $2 billion (about 1.5 billion pounds) from a ticket bought in 2022 in California. EuroMillions, a lottery offered across nine European countries and also operated in the U.K. by Allwyn, awarded the maximum 250 million euros (about $285 million) to players from France, Ireland and Austria over the course of 2025.

The odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are a minuscule 1 in 292.2 million. Those odds will be the same for U.S. and U.K. players, lottery officials say.

U.S. lottery officials say the expanded player base will allow Powerball jackpots to grow more quickly, likely increasing sales as more people are drawn to larger grand prizes.

Powerball tickets cost $2.

Tickets purchased in the U.K. will only go toward the Powerball jackpot — not lower-tier prizes. Players in the U.K. will have a different lower-tier prize structure.

The estimated jackpot amounts in each country will differ due to currency conversion rates and because the U.S. advertises prize amounts pretax, unlike in the U.K.

U.K. Powerball jackpots will also be paid over 30 years, whereas in the U.S. jackpot winners have a choice between taking their winnings spread over years through an annuity or in cash — nearly all winners opt for cash.

Powerball is played in 45 U.S. states, and Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In the game, players choose five white-ball numbers from 1 to 69 and one red Powerball number from 1 to 26. Drawings will continue to be held Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Republicans are choosing nominees Tuesday to challenge Democrats who hold top offices as the GOP searches for a path back to power in a battleground state it used to dominate.

U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert, who represent neighboring districts in metro Phoenix, offer a clash of styles in the race to take on Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, considered the most endangered Democratic governor in the country this election cycle.

With President Donald Trump’s endorsement and support from the grassroots turnout machine of the conservative group Turning Point Action, Biggs says he can unite the party going into a general election.

Schweikert says his low key, pro-business, fiscal conservatism can win back voters turned off by a string of Trump loyalists like Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor four years ago.

Both parties have hotly contested primaries to replace Schweikert in the highly competitive 1st Congressional District.

Republicans also are picking nominees for secretary of state and attorney general, key posts with power over elections in a state that was pivotal for Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in 2020.

Biggs built a national profile as chair of the House Freedom Caucus from 2019 to 2022 and as a staunch defender of Trump. He assisted the president’s attempt to block the certification of his loss in the 2020 election, voting against accepting Electoral College votes from Arizona and other battleground states after the Jan. 6 riot.

He has always represented safe Republican seats and is a veteran of factional brawls within the GOP. Before going to Congress, he nearly lost his post as state Senate president during a confrontation with then-Gov. Jan Brewer, also a Republican, over her push to expand Medicaid.

Schweikert has walked a tightrope with Trump, carefully keeping his distance without antagonizing him. That has helped him win a string of tough races in a competitive House district — a track record he says will help him win over swing voters and beat Hobbs — but has left him isolated from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base.

Democrats have focused their attacks on Biggs, whom they plan to portray as an extremist focused on helping Trump and not Arizonans.

Schweikert’s 1st District is a top battleground in the fight for a congressional majority. Anchored in Scottsdale, it is home to many of the white, highly educated and affluent voters who have soured on the GOP under Trump.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee controversially threw its support behind Marlene Galán-Woods, a former television news anchor who used to be a Republican. Her late husband, Grant Woods, was the Republican attorney general in the 1990s and later became a vocal Trump critic.

Galán-Woods’ chief opponent, Amish Shah, is an emergency medicine doctor and former state legislator who was the nominee in 2024 but lost narrowly to Schweikert.

On the Republican side, former Arizona Cardinals kicker Jay Feeley has Trump’s endorsement. But he has been dogged by criticism for living outside the district — he resides in Biggs’ district and originally was running there until Trump endorsed a rival in that contest.

Feeley faces Joseph Chaplik, a former state legislator popular with many of the GOP’s grassroots activists, and businessperson John Trobough.

In Tucson, retired Marine drill instructor JoAnna Mendoza is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination to challenge second-term Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani, who also has no primary opponent. The seat is perennially competitive in general elections and is a top pickup target for Democrats in November.

Meanwhile, the GOP primary for the safe Republican seat Biggs is vacating has turned salacious: Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is endorsed by Trump, came under scrutiny for alleged sexual misconduct and abuse of power.

The county attorney cleared him of criminal wrongdoing, and Trump reiterated his endorsement this month. Lamb dismissed the allegations as “slander and lies.”

He faces Daniel Keenan, who owns a construction company.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Iran are back to bombing every day in a bid to control the Strait of Hormuz. And neither is backing down, showing the limitations of President Donald Trump’s reliance on escalating airstrikes to bend Tehran to his will.

While the Trump administration says it is open to diplomacy, Iran so far has refused to loosen its grip over the crucial oil shipping corridor in the Persian Gulf. It is raising questions about the strategy for the next phase of the conflict as intensifying attacks have collapsed an interim ceasefire deal, left additional American troops dead and sent U.S. gasoline prices back up — posing new problems for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

Even with glimmers of hope for talks, the sides could be headed back to all-out war, with Trump warning that “every time Iran kills an American Soldier” going forward, “they will pay for that killing many times over.”

The renewed escalations reflect “a fundamental misreading of the Iranian psyche and a lack of learning” from previous fighting, said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“I think it’s driven by a calculus on either side that they can double down on military escalation as a way of breaking the impasse and getting the other side to relent,” Yacoubian said. “The danger, of course, is that the more escalatory it becomes, the harder it will be to seize any potential opening back to diplomacy.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is still open to negotiating, telling reporters Sunday night that Iran continues “to send signals that they want to talk, that they want to negotiate, but their behavior is what we’re responding to. And their behavior is they’re launching missiles and drones at ships” in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes.

“The United States always remains open to a diplomatic solution, and we’ve tried multiple times with Iran, and we’ll continue to try,” he said. “If that door opens, we’ll be happy to see it open.”

Trump is focused on making Iran pay for the recent deaths of U.S. troops, violations of the interim deal reached last month and attacks on ships in the strait, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said that military strikes on Iran would continue until Trump decides otherwise, but that talks between the countries also would go on.

For some outside observers, the administration appears to be struggling to find an off-ramp, both militarily and diplomatically.

“This administration currently is flustered,” said Alan Eyre, a former U.S. diplomat once involved in past nuclear negotiations with Tehran and now a fellow at the Middle East Institute. “It really doesn’t have a coherent and consistent strategy as to how to extricate itself from this quagmire.”

The U.S. military can only accomplish so much as it ramps up attacks on Iran, experts say.

The conflict has demonstrated the limits of relying solely on air power, said Christopher Preble, a scholar at the Stimson Center think tank focused on U.S. foreign policy. But he noted that sending in ground troops would be unpopular with many Americans and members of Congress.

“It seems that President Trump certainly has the capability to continue to bomb, and Iran will have the capability to continue to keep the strait closed — or closed well enough,” Preble said.

David Schenker, a former official in the first Trump administration who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the renewed strikes on Iranian infrastructure are a repeat of attacks during the early weeks of the war. And those did not result in Iran’s capitulation.

“The U.S. hit 13,000 targets in the first 6 weeks of the war, and this didn’t sway Iran to take a knee,” he said.

Retired Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who served under President Joe Biden, said previous wars such as Vietnam showed the limitations of air power alone.

“Generally, you have to couple air power with ground operations, sometimes naval operations as well, and certainly space today,” he said.

When launching the war on Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel struck many fixed targets identified before the conflict began. But Iran had a long time to prepare for the attacks by concealing and dispersing weapons.

“So the easy targets are pretty much gone,” Kendall said. “They can hide ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and small air vehicles pretty easily. So it’s a very hard job to try to suppress that kind of a threat over a period of time. And that’s why they’re still able to attack not just ships in the Straits, but also our bases in the region and so on.”

A diplomatic solution also could prove elusive.

Eyre, of the Middle East Institute, said the Trump administration has shown no preference for “actual diplomacy,” relying instead on close advisers with little international relations experience while outsourcing some of the work to mediators such as Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt.

“We’ve got a tough road ahead of us, but it theoretically could be done,” Eyre said of potential negotiations to end the conflict. “Unfortunately, there is so little mutual confidence in the other side. There’s so little bilateral trust between the U.S. and Iran that it makes everything so much harder.”

Both Schenker and Yacoubian said recent comments from Trump, Rubio and their Iranian counterparts reflect some openness to diplomacy.

Yacoubian pointed to the “measured” response from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the recent killing of U.S. service members in Jordan, indicating a possibility for an off-ramp. Iran’s release last week of an Iranian-American woman who had not been allowed to leave the country also showed a sign of goodwill from Tehran, she said.

But these small, positive signals could quickly become moot if the decision by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels Monday to announce a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia expands to a complete shutdown of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

That, Yacoubian says, could constitute “a perfect storm of disruption” for the already precarious global economy.

___

Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

By Steve Gorman

July 20 (Reuters) – Two women and three men were confirmed dead on Monday in an apparent mass drowning in Ohio after two people entered a river to help a struggling swimmer, followed by two more adults who made an ill-fated rescue attempt of their own, officials said.

According to the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office, the tragedy unfolded Sunday night along the Scioto River at the O’Shaughnessy Reservoir, about 10 miles northwest of Columbus, Ohio, the state’s capital and largest city.

A group of at least seven people – two sets of parents, an adult male friend, and two children – were relaxing along the river’s edge around sunset, some of them fishing, when one of the adults ventured into the river to swim, according to Sheriff Jeffrey Balzer.

As the swimmer began to struggle in the water, two other adults tried to assist him but began floundering themselves, leading two more adults to make rescue attempts before all five disappeared in the river, Balzer told reporters at a news conference on Monday.

“It’s not unusual, I think, for one person to be struggling in the water, and other people attempt to save him, yet they don’t have the skills to do that, so we end up with multiple deaths,” the sheriff said. 

Authorities were alerted after one of the two children ran to a nearby road and flagged down a motorist, telling the driver “his family was in the river,” Balzer said.

Emergency personnel were dispatched to the scene, where they quickly found two women and pulled them from the water. The women were pronounced dead a short time later at a local hospital, according to Balzer. 

The bodies of the three missing men were recovered the next day, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, Tracy Whited, later told news media outlets.

The sheriff said the two children, both under the age of 10, had since been placed in the care of the local family services agency.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) – Civil rights groups said they filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday over the government’s attempt to restrict federal childcare and family assistance funding.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Women’s Law Center and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice said in the lawsuit against the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that they sought correspondence between federal officials and pro-Trump right-wing online influencer Nick Shirley.

A viral video by Shirley in late 2025 was publicly amplified and credited by senior administration officials as the basis for the attempted funding restrictions. 

The video alleged some childcare centers in Minnesota were fraudulent. News reports subsequently said the claims were misleading and exaggerated.

Earlier this month, HHS rescinded the $10 ​billion freeze on child care subsidies and ‌social services funding for five states governed by Democrats  – California, Illinois, ​Colorado, New York and Minnesota – after legal obstacles got in the way of ​the freeze attempts.

A federal judge blocked the government from freezing the funds earlier this year for the duration of a ​lawsuit against ​the freeze ⁠brought by the states.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Trump, who earlier this year ordered an aggressive immigration crackdown in Minnesota, has alleged that Somali communities in the state have engaged in fraud.

Rights groups say the crackdown has created a fearful environment and that Trump has used isolated fraud cases as an excuse to target immigrants. They also dismiss Trump’s ability to tackle fraud, citing pardons from him to those who have faced fraud convictions in the past. 

Trump has attempted to freeze ​funding for universities and ​states ⁠over a range of issues.

These include fraud claims, climate initiatives, diversity programs, transgender policies and pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ⁠ally Israel’s ​assault on Gaza. 

Rights advocates say ​the measures violate free speech and due process.

Activists from U.S. minorities have also alleged in other cases that the Trump administration has targeted them by collaborating with online right-wing entities. 

Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, whom the Trump administration is attempting to deport and who spent months in immigration detention last year, filed two lawsuits against the government in the past week, saying in one of them that federal officials collaborated with right-wing and anti-Palestinian groups to target pro-Palestinian activists.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)

By Tim McLaughlin

July 20 (Reuters) – The regional U.S. grid operator for 14 central states warned on Monday evening that it could order rolling blackouts because the power system was on the brink of an electricity shortfall due to record demand.

Several power plants unexpectedly tripped offline, leaving reserve margins razor thin amid a heat wave in the territory stretching from North Dakota to Louisiana.

The pool, called the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), issued a level three energy alert, meaning the grid operator used some or all of its operating reserves to serve demand. The grid operator said it had not had to order rolling blackouts despite the high risk.

SPP issued the level three alert about 6 p.m. EDT for its western territory, before ratcheting down the threat level a couple of hours later.

On rare occasion, grid operators will order controlled blackouts to prevent outages from cascading across a wider area.

(Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Democrats could vote as early as this week on the order of their primary calendar for the 2028 presidential election, although the decision wouldn’t be final until the full Democratic National Committee agrees.

The panel that sets the party’s voting order could make that determination as early as Friday when it meets in Washington, two people with knowledge of the party’s process but not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Associated Press on Monday.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee has been holding monthly meetings as it considers the order in which states will vote during the 2028 primaries. The panel has heard presentations from a dozen states hoping to kick off the party’s primaries and caucuses, including Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

The calendar isn’t considered set until it’s approved by the full DNC, which is scheduled to meet in August. The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democrats upended their process for setting their calendar after Iowa’s 2020 Democratic caucus debacle, which led to days of uncertainty over who had won. The party since then has favored more diverse states.

For the 2024 cycle, President Joe Biden led a DNC effort to have South Carolina — which for years has held the party’s first Southern contest — go first overall in the party’s primaries. He cited the state’s more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white.

Four years earlier, Rep. Jim Clyburn, South Carolina’s lone congressional Democrat and for a time the top Black Democratic lawmaker on Capitol Hill, helped Biden revive his flagging primary campaign and win a resounding victory in the state. He then went on to secure the party’s presidential nomination.

South Carolina’s Democratic leaders have pushed for the state to lead off again, lobbying for support and getting buy-in from Democratic Party chairs in five Southern states. In May, they pressed for South Carolina to reprise its role as the party’s first-in-the-nation contest holder, arguing that the state best represents the initial playing field for presidential candidates to build the coalitions needed to win.

A quarter of the state’s population is Black and about 9% is Hispanic, according to the Census Bureau.

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Cappelletti reported from Washington. Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

The Justice Department is investigating whether Harvard University is allowing Chinese donors to create scholarships that exclude American students, adding to the barrage of federal inquiries the Trump administration has opened in its battle against the Ivy League school.

Justice Department officials announced the new review Monday, saying Harvard’s foreign funding disclosures “raised concerns” about possible discrimination against U.S. students. The agency did not specify which scholarship programs are being targeted and emphasized it “has not reached any conclusions.”

The investigation is aimed at Harvard’s “China-based financial aid programs,” the Justice Department said. The agency said Chinese donors have given money to Harvard to support financial aid programs limited to students from certain countries. That restriction could amount to illegal discrimination based on country of origin, the department said.

“Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it,” said Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the department’s Civil Rights Division.

Harvard said it was reviewing the Justice Department notice.

“Harvard follows the law for required reporting of donations and, consistent with our legal obligations under Title VI, does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid,” the university said in a written statement.

In a statement, Liu Chang, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said China-U.S. education cooperation is mutually beneficial. “China maintains that normal education and academic exchange should not be disrupted for political purposes,” Liu said.

Like many U.S. universities, Harvard accepts foreign funding through direct donations or contracts. The Trump administration has pushed for greater transparency around outside money, warning that accepting funding from foreign adversaries is a national security risk.

Federal disclosures from Harvard show it has accepted $630 million from Chinese sources over a period of decades. Overall, it has reported about $4.5 billion in foreign funding. The Justice Department cited those figures but did not single out any donors or programs being reviewed.

The investigation is a compliance review, meaning it’s initiated by the federal government rather than responding to an outside complaint.

Unlike the vast majority of U.S. universities, Harvard and a small number of other schools provide need-based scholarships to international students on the same basis as U.S. students. Grants and other aid from the federal government are reserved for American students, but Harvard “has its own job and scholarship money available to foreign students,” according to a Harvard financial aid website.

In some cases, foreign donors have given money to be used for international students.

In 2014, Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, a Chinese couple that co-founded the real estate company SOHO China, donated $15 million to Harvard to provide financial aid for Chinese students. Their gift drew blowback from critics in China who said it was a betrayal to give money to foreign schools instead of Chinese universities.

The Justice Department’s announcement makes the unusual legal argument that steering private funding to students of certain countries amounts to a civil rights violation for U.S. students.

“Harvard appears to be accepting these funds and, in adherence to their restrictions, providing student financial aid to foreign students, presumably Chinese, based on their national origin — to the potential detriment of students of other national origins, including American citizens,” the agency said.

The Trump administration has repeatedly opened new federal investigations against Harvard in its battle to win obedience from the nation’s oldest university.

Harvard has been a prime target in the administration’s push to end “wokeness” and fight alleged antisemitism in American higher education. A federal judge has blocked the White House from cutting billions of dollars in federal research funding from Harvard amid the feud.

Even as the legal battle continues, the government has sought new lines of attack, seeking to limit Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students and U.S. military members, and launching investigations into the school’s admissions process.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States military said late Monday it was carrying out its 10th consecutive night of strikes on Iran in a push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The renewed bombings followed the death of another American service member, and came after Iran launched attacks on American allies Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. 

U.S. Central Command said on social media that the latest strikes “are designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping” in the strait. 

Even as the U.S. and Iran inch closer to all-out war again, glimmers of hope appeared on the diplomatic front, as Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, for talks. 

The interim deal signed last month that was meant to end the fighting has crumbled. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a vital supply route for world energy supplies — has largely stalled. And as fighting intensifies, both sides have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people. 

A new potential threat to world energy markets emerged Monday after Iran-backed rebels in Yemen said they planned to prevent Saudi Arabia from shipping in the Red Sea, an alternate route for oil exports during the war. 

The escalation has pushed oil prices higher in recent weeks. Benchmark Brent crude traded Monday above $88 a barrel and regular gasoline in the U.S. climbed to an average of $4 a gallon, keeping pressure on Americans’ wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall. 

The U.S. military identified two soldiers who were killed in Jordan in attacks that left a third person missing. Separately, the military confirmed another death in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone. President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to warn that “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!” 

Trump was planning to attend a ceremony on Tuesday evening at Dover Air Force Base, where at least one service member’s remains were due to arrive. 

US targets strategic sites in Iran 

U.S. Central Command said Sunday’s airstrikes targeted “Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks.” Last week, the U.S. struck bridges and a tower at an Iranian port. 

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that the American strikes killed at least one person around Tabriz, a northwestern city about 520 kilometers (325 miles) from the capital, Tehran. Tabriz is believed to host underground missile bases run by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. 

U.S. strikes likely also hit Bandar Imam Khomeini in Khuzestan province, Sirik and Jask in Hormozgan province and Konarak and Chahbahar in Sistan and Baluchistan province, IRNA reported. 

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Monday evening that a second ship had been attacked a day earlier in the Strait of Hormuz, this one off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. 

The other vessel caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile near the coastline of Oman. The crew abandoned the vessel, which was adrift and still ablaze hours later, the UKMTO said. 

The route around Oman has been the one the U.S. military has encouraged ships to travel to avoid Iran’s control. The Guard later claimed it was targeting tankers in the strait. 

Tehran also hit U.S.-allied countries throughout the Middle East. 

Kuwait said its air defenses fired at an incoming barrage, and Jordan’s armed forces said Monday evening they had shot down three Iranian missiles, adding that there had been no material damage or casualties. There was no immediate word from Iran. 

Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry condemned Iranian drone strikes targeting the country’s air traffic systems, saying they endanger travel for civilians. 

The Strait of Hormuz remains key to the conflict 

A new pressure point could emerge for world energy markets as Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced on Monday a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, said they would block shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in response to an attack on Sanaa International Airport last week that they blamed on Saudi Arabia. 

With the Strait of Hormuz blocked up, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to get millions of barrels of oil out to market. The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked. 

There was no immediate response from Saudi Arabia. 

Trump has threatened to target Iran’s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of world oil supplies were shipped before the war. Recent attacks suggest the U.S. military is carrying out that plan. 

The U.S. in the past week reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil. The military says it has redirected seven ships and disabled one since then. 

A glimmer of hope for diplomacy 

Pakistan has intensified diplomatic efforts in recent days to resuscitate the interim ceasefire reached last month that called for resolving remaining issues tied to the war within 60 days. The truce unraveled after both sides resumed attacks on each other’s military installations and other infrastructure. 

Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni arrived in Islamabad on Monday for two days of talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others. Momeni’s counterpart, Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, expressed optimism. 

“God willing, we will have good news,” Naqvi said. 

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. is still open to negotiating with Iran but that “it has to be real.” 

“If the door opens to diplomacy — if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations — that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said. “That’s not where we are tonight, unfortunately.” 

Iranian authorities on Sunday said at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of U.S. strikes. Since the war began on Feb. 28, 17 U.S. service members have been killed.