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Aug. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Sunday night that negotiations with Iran toward ending the war will resume Monday, about a month after formal talks between the two unraveled and preceded a return to open conflict.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Washington after spending a weekend at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, Trump said talks with Iran will begin Monday afternoon, claiming, as he has repeatedly throughout the war, that Iran wants “to make a deal.”

“We’ll see if it’s true,” he said. “I’d love to do that. Save a lot of lives. Save a lot of unnecessary power, to be honest with you.”

Trump had called off what he advertised as a massive attack on Iran over the weekend, stating it was at the request of allies and Tehran, which he said had agreed to “the parameters of a deal.”

Aboard his plane, he identified Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the nations that had asked him to hold off.

“It would have been a massive attack. We were all set to go. But when the allies ask to call it off, you go to sort of say, ‘well, let’s see,'” he said. “And the reason they asked they think there’s a deal.”

Trump has long sought a deal with Iran to constrain its nuclear program, going back to his first administration when in 2018 he unilaterally pulled the United States from an Obama-era multinational accord in order to fashion a new one, and imposed sanctions on Tehran to force it to the negotiating table.

In late February, the United States and Israel attacked Iran with the aims of destroying its remaining nuclear capabilities and inciting regime change, instead igniting the five-month-long war, during which Tehran has laid military claims to the vital Strait of Hormuz.

An April cease-fire created conditions for a memorandum of understanding to be signed in mid-June that was to lay the foundation for ending the war. Amid negotiations on implementing the MOU, disagreements arose over its stance on the vital energy route, which led to a resumption in fighting last month.

Monday’s negotiations would be the first publicly acknowledged since early last month. Trump said the discussions will concern the Strait of Hormuz and led into nuclear talks.

He said that the three allies believe “a deal is imminent.”

Trump called off the attack after speaking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman over the phone. Trump said Sunday that bin Salman warned him that the consequences of the attack would be unpredictable.

“I mean, will they be flooded with people pouring into their country,” he said. “A lot of bad things can happen.”

Trump said it would have been “the biggest attack since World War II” and “disastrous” for Iran.

The United States is seeking to restore freedom of navigation through the strait, while Iran is trying to maintain some form of control over commercial vessels that pass through it.

According to the nonpartisan, Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, Iranian negotiators may be willing to make what it called “limited compromises” with the United States over Tehran’s control of the strait, though what those concessions may be were not entirely clear.

Aug. 2 (UPI) — Sen. Bernie Moreno on Sunday said his former son-in-law, Rep. Max Miller, should not be serving in the U.S. House of Representatives amid mounting allegations of domestic abuse made by Miller’s ex-wife.

Moreno, R-Ohio, broke his silence on the subject of Miller, R-Ohio., in a statement issued on social media in which he said his daughter Emily’s former husband “should not serve in the House of Representatives.

“I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake,” Moreno wrote. “I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does.”

Miller, the Republican incumbent from a district in northeastern Ohio and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, has been locked in a bitter custody battle with Emily Moreno over their 2-year-old daughter following the finalization of their divorce last year.

During their legal fight, Emily Moreno, a conservative policy adviser, has accused Miller of incidents of domestic violence such as scalding her with hot water and hitting and threatening her while they were married.

While those claims were previously known, they came back into the foreground last month when new court filings and police reports released by Mother Jones magazine detailed new information that their daughter had suffered a broken collarbone.

Miller has denied all of Emily Moreno’s allegations and on Sunday again pleaded his innocence and reiterated he would not withdraw as a GOP congressional candidate in the upcoming midterm election.

In a video posted on X, he blamed the “left-wing media” for his predicament and called his ex-wife a woman with “mental health challenges” while linking to a cache of documents he claimed refute all of her charges.

However, his former father-in-law — another vocal supporter of President Trump — nonetheless ended his strategy of avoiding comment on the situation, instead calling Miller unfit to hold office.

“As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help,” Bernie Moreno said. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”

The GOP senator asserted that “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives.

“I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does.”

His remarks came after some Democratic House members called on the Ethics Committee to investigate Miller over what they called “deeply disturbing” reports of “domestic violence and child abuse.”

The deadline for Ohio Republicans to replace Miller on the November general election ballot is Wednesday, and his troubles are leading some Democratic strategists to view his seat as a possible political opportunity.

Aug. 2 (UPI) — U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur was hospitalized on Sunday after being struck in a hit-and-run accident in Ohio, her office said.

Kaptur, D-Ohio, was on her way to church, riding as a passenger, when the car was hit shortly before 11 a.m.

“She is active, alert, and being treated for non-life threatening injuries,” the statement from her office said. “We look forward to additional information from Toledo Police as they investigate the accident.”

One witness told WTOL 11 the other driver was picked up by a third vehicle and fled the scene.

“Toledo Police Accident Investigators have responded to the scene, and the investigation remains active and ongoing,” Toledo police said in a statement obtained by CBS News.

Kaptur, 80, is the longest-serving woman in congressional history, having first been elected to her seat in 1982.

Aug. 2 (UPI) — Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate their homes across the Pacific Northwest on Saturday, as dangerous wildfires spread in parts of Washington state and Oregon.

Three major wildfires are burning around Spokane, the largest of which had burned more than 3,500 acres by Sunday morning, NPR reported.

“I was sitting near an elementary school and saw a wall of flames east of the school and just a cascade of black smoke and a wall of flames coming toward me,” Alexandra Duggan, who lives in the area, told NPR.

More than 5,000 structures are threatened by the fires, which have knocked out power from ore than 13,000 homes, CNN reported.

Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington declared a state of emergency, saying, “Our record-setting drought and high winds are creating dangerous conditions across the state.”

“If you are in the area, please continue to be vigilant and follow directions of emergency personnel,” Ferguson said in a statement on X.

In Oregon, wildfires have burned more than 1.8 million acres this season, OPB reported.

On Saturday, more than 25,000 Oregonians were under evacuation orders in central and southeastern Oregon.

One of the blazes, east of Mount Hood, had already burned some 23,000 acres by Saturday morning and remained at 0% containment.

“The reason we’re seeing these conditions… is that things are really dry,” said Matt Callihan, a lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service, to OPB. “We haven’t seen rain in a long time. It’s been hot, so that’s allowed fuels to cure pretty well.”

July 31 (UPI) — Federal officials on Friday released an updated framework for the Colorado River, requiring Arizona, California and Nevada to significantly reduce their water use in the coming years.

The plan, released by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation, reduces the water available for use by the three states by 3 million acre-feet in the coming decade.

One acre-foot is enough water for as many as four households to use for a whole year. The cuts represent the largest proposed cuts for those states to date

“The [report] contains a framework that includes sideboards that are unacceptable for the state of Arizona,” the Arizona Department of Water Resources said in a statement to The Colorado Sun. “Such reductions would devastate Arizona’s water users and its economy.”

The Colorado River’s resources are divided among seven states, combined into two groups: Upper Basin states include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, while Lower Basin states are Arizona, California and Nevada.

Upper Basin states have a target for voluntary cuts of up to 200,000 acre-feet per year, or 5% of their annual water use.

The Colorado River provides water for some 40 million people.

Federal officials said drought conditions over the past 25 years have dwindled the water capacity available to the states that rely on the river.

“The department has a responsibility to ensure the Colorado River system remains reliable and resilient for the millions of Americans, communities and industries that depend on it,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “This framework provides the flexibility to respond to changing hydrologic conditions while preserving the opportunity for the Basin States to continue working toward durable, consensus-based solutions.”

Aug. 1 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has called out District Attorney Jeanine Pirro after her office moved to dismiss charges against an Olympic canoeist for vandalism.

Prosecutors on Friday made the motion to dismiss charges against David Hearn, 67, and admitted that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was due to a “botched installation and not vandalism.” Hearn was indicted in early July for purposely ripping up a piece of the blue sealant from the bottom of the pool.

The filing in D.C Superior Court lists documents and evidence showing the contracting work was rushed to finish in time for the America 250 celebrations and was not done properly.

“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday. “I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”

Soon after, he posted again, saying, “Look for yourselves at the VANDALISM that took place at The Reflecting Pool. The material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!”

Aug. 1 (UPI) — At least three people were killed and two injured in a shooting at an In-N-Out restaurant in Idaho on Saturday, police said.

Authorities in Twin Falls responded to reports of shots fired about 2:30 p.m. in an area that included multiple major retailers and a movie theater, NBC News reported.

Videos posted on social media showed a man wearing a black shirt and carrying a large rifle in the area, Boise State Public Radio reported.

The man reportedly shot the front windshield of a parked car and later walked into the In-N-Out drive-through.

Police Chief Matthew Hicks said it was a “very chaotic scene” and confirmed the shooter was dead.

“We have literally hundreds of people that were in some way, shape or form in the area of this restaurant at the time that are being interviewed right now,” he told reporters, BSPR reported.

In a statement, Twin Falls police said roads and a nearby bridge were closed to all residents and visitors while officers responded to the incident.

“We are working to try to ascertain his identity and the motivations behind [the shooting] and we’ll be able to figure that out in the next coming days,” Hicks told reporters.

The police chief added, “Today has been a very hard day here in Twin Falls,” NBC News reported.

Aug. 1 (UPI) — At least seven states have suffered cyberattacks on water systems as cities and states work to keep the water supplies safe.

There has been no indication that any water supply is unsafe to drink, the New York Times reported. Minnesota first reported a cyberattack and now Michigan has also reported attacks.

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency said in a release that it’s “observing a significant increase in cyber threat actors targeting programmable logic controllers in the Water and Wastewater Systems sector. CISA urges critical infrastructure owners, operators, and integrators to remove publicly exposed PLCs and other operational technology from the Internet as soon as possible. Threat actors targeting exposed PLCs have modified passwords to lock out operators and disconnected the PLCs by changing their IP addresses. This activity has resulted in boil-water notices and sustained manual operations.”

Officials told The Times that Iran has increased cyberattacks on American systems, but that the water attacks haven’t been definitively declared to have come from Iran. But Iran has targeted water systems in the United States in the past. Because there’s no financial motive, an attack by hacking criminals is less likely, The Times said.

Michigan had “a small number of reports from Michigan communities indicating activity consistent with what federal agencies described,” Dale George, director of communications for Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, told CBS News.

“All systems continued to operate safely, issues were addressed by local operators, and there are no known impacts that posed a public health concern,” George added.

CBS reported that more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota were affected.

On Friday, President Donald Trump blamed Minnesota and Gov. Tim Walz for the attacks.

“I think that Minnesota is behind it,” Trump said during a televised Cabinet meeting at Camp David. “You know who’s behind it? Minnesota. Because they’re grossly incompetent. I think the governor’s behind it. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack. I think that Minnesota ought to get its act together.”

“They like to say, ‘Oh, it was Iran.’ Iran should be so lucky. Iran’s got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota,” the president said.

Walz responded to the jabs from Trump in a post on X.

“DOGE took an ax to CISA and left the U.S. exposed to cyber attacks. Thankfully, our experts in Minnesota were able to identify the vulnerability quickly and work with local communities to stop it,” Walz said.

Braham, Minn., Mayor Nate George said federal and local officials don’t doubt the source.

“We’re getting bits and pieces of information from the state of Minnesota and the FBI,” George told The Times. “They are pretty sure it’s Iranian actors” but are reluctant to say so publicly.

Aug. 1 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would push to codify into law his controversial $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund if two senators continue to block the confirmation of his nominee for attorney general.

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., have opposed the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for a permanent role in opposition to the fund.

Speaking to reporters at Camp David on Friday, Trump had admitted the fund was “dead” — but flip flopped in a statement the following day.

“If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill, which takes care of those who have been so badly treated by the Crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma!) Administration (I get nothing, although I was treated horribly!), PASSED,” Trump said in a statement on Truth Social.

“Todd Blanche was a voice of reason!” he added. “It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done.”

The fund comes from a settlement, negotiated between Trump’s private attorneys and his Department of Justice, that would compensate people who feel they were unfairly targeted by the government, including Jan. 6 rioters.

The settlement would also include a provision that would shield Trump and businesses from IRS audits.

Blanche has said, at times, the anti-weaponization fund would not be moving forward.

But Cornyn and Tillis have asked Blanche for written assurances from the DOJ that the fund was gone for good, which he has failed to produce.

“Despite comments as late as yesterday that the fund is dead, President Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans in the Senate would be against,” Tillis said in a statement on X.

“It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal,” the senator added. “Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday.”

Aug. 1 (UPI) — Two ransom notes sent by people claiming to be the kidnappers of Nancy Guthrie were released Friday by local police in hopes of generating new leads.

The second note, which was sent Feb. 6, told the Guthrie family that Nancy Guthrie died soon after she was kidnapped.

“We believe it was heart related,” the note said. “She is buried in nature now. Nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome. We want your family to know this and hope you all can find peace. We are truly sorry.”

Nancy Guthrie, 84, was the mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie. She was kidnapped from her home near Tucson, Ariz., on Feb. 1. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department marked six months since the kidnapping on Thursday and reiterated that the investigation is ongoing.

The family posted a new plea on Instagram Saturday.

“This is our beautiful Mom. Six months ago, someone took her out of her bed in the dead of night. We have lived every moment, every breath and every heartbeat in agony and despair ever since,” the post said. “Every day, we wake up and try to be strong and go on — because that’s what our joyful and resilient Mom taught us to do. But make no mistake — our hearts are in ruins.”

The post asks that people review the letters for possible recognition.

“We are begging for help. We are desperate. We need someone to come forward. Someone knows something. Someone suspects something. Someone recognizes the writing in the ransom demand notes. Someone has noticed something different, strange, troubling or just unusual — perhaps with someone they deeply love. … There is a way to end this situation and do the right thing. Please. Bring her home,” the post said.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department posted the emailed ransom notes on X for the public to view, as well as a list of behaviors that could signal involvement.

The first note, which was sent on Feb. 2 to a local news outlet, noted that there was a white smartwatch on the floor at the foot of her bed, and that the backyard floodlight had been destroyed. It demanded $4 million in bitcoin by Feb. 5.

“Do not play games, law enforcement will not be able to help you,” the note threatened.

In July, a California man pleaded guilty to sending phony ransom notes to the Guthrie family to harass them.

July 31 (UPI) — The United States military is preparing to launch a fresh wave of airstrikes on Iran as early as this weekend, unnamed sources told several news outlets Friday.

Sources told CBS News the attacks are likely to target energy infrastructure, but President Donald Trump is yet to give the final order to begin the assault.

The Israeli military might also be included in attacking Iran for the first time in weeks, Axios reported.

“We will be hitting them very hard,” Trump told reporters at Camp David on Friday. “At some point, they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore.'”

Striking civilian infrastructure is a war crime under international humanitarian law.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said, “We very much want to strike Iran’s energy targets.”

“The United States is not approving it at the moment because of the concern that Iran would attack neighboring countries, causing a global oil crisis,” he told the country’s Channel 14, as reported by The Times of Israel.

“As far as we’re concerned, we’re prepared to set [Iran] back 40 years,” Katz added.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell would not comment on specific targets before the strikes.

“The Department of War is locked and loaded, ready to execute the President’s directives at a moment’s notice,” Parnell said in a statement to CBS News.

One senior Iranian official was quoted as saying attacks against infrastructure are a form of “madness” and the country was prepared to retaliate, Al-Jazeera reported.

The official added Iran’s response would include “the vital infrastructure of the Zionist regime and the energy infrastructure of the US in the region.”

But in a court filing Friday evening, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the damage was caused by a “botched installation.” Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI. | License Photo

July 31 (UPI) — Trump administration prosecutors on Friday moved to dismiss the felony case against U.S. Olympian David Hearn, admitting that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was due to a “botched installation and not vandalism.”

Hearn, 67, was indicted by a federal grand jury early July on accusations that he purposefully ripped up a piece of the recently-installed blue sealant from the pool’s bottom.

President Donald Trump claimed the pool, which cost nearly $15 million to renovate, had been damaged by Hearn and other vandals.

But in a court filing Friday evening, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said she had been misled by the Interior Department into believing “nearly all of the damage” was done by vandals.

In charging Hearn, Pirro had said she had “tremendous evidence” that he committed a felony that could have landed him in prison for 10 years.

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism,” Pirro wrote in court papers, The New York Times reported.

Pirro added the “botched” renovation “was the result of a flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration.”

In a statement, Hearn’s attorneys said, “The Trump administration’s case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought.”

“Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong,” the attorneys added. “The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim.

“The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

July 31 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday turned down a request by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, to block a Minnesota law banning nudification technology.

Minnesota in May became the first state in the nation to pass legislation banning the practice of using AI to digitally remove clothing from a pictured individual.

xAI, which develops the chatbot and image generator Grok, filed the suit over the ban Tuesday.

“The court respectfully denies the request for a temporary restraining order before tomorrow,” U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled on Friday. “xAI filed the motion on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect.

“Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate.”

The federal judge set a hearing on Aug. 19 to evaluate the lawsuit.

“See you in court, creep,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement on X, referring to Musk.

In its lawsuit, xAI argues that the Minnesota law “imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression in a clumsy attempt to prohibit ‘nudification.'”

“xAI accordingly does not contest Minnesota’s interest in prohibiting the dissemination of artificially generated nude images of real people without their consent,” the company wrote in court documents. “But the statute Minnesota enacted extends far beyond that goal, exposing a wide array of protected speech to civil liability and government sanctions.”

Minnesota’s law would apply fines of $500,000 to websites and apps providing nudification technology.

Musk’s company has faced intense scrutiny since a version of Grok, released in December, began generating thousands of sexualized images, including some that appeared to be of minors.

The company in January changed its policies, but Grok continued to generate sexualized images as late as April.

July 31 (UPI) — Anthropic said some of its artificial intelligence models mistakenly accessed the Internet and hacked into the databases of three other companies during cybersecurity testing.

Anthropic said Thursday it reviewed 141,006 recent operations by its Claude models after rival OpenAI recently revealed a similar incident with its own systems.

OpenAI said one of its agents had been in a sandbox test on July 22, without Internet access, when the AI model exploited a vulnerability in the system, gained access to the web and hacked into Hugging Face, a platform for open-source machine learning.

Following OpenAI’s admission, Anthropic conducted an internal review focusing on the possibility that its systems could also have unexpectedly accessed the Internet.

Anthropic said it identified three such incidents.

“Each incident involved a different fictional capture-the-flag scenario — for example, in one, Claude played an employee of a made-up company, attacking that company’s internal systems inside a private test environment,” the company said in a statement. “In all cases, our evaluation prompt stated explicitly that Claude had no internet access, but didn’t give Claude any limits on where to look for the flag.

“However, a misconfiguration left the machines that Claude accessed as part of the evaluation with live internet access,” the statement continued. “Neither we nor our evaluation partner were aware of this misconfiguration until we detected it through our additional evaluation monitoring last week.”

Anthropic said it considered the incident to have been an “operational failure,” but it maintained “cautious optimism” that “this type of risk can be overcome.”

“Our models were told they had no internet access and to capture the flag, while in fact being misconfigured to have internet access,” the company statement said. “This led them to believe — arguably reasonably — that the real environments they encountered were simulations.

“Notably, our most recent model, on realizing that it was working in a real environment, stopped its pursuit of the evaluation goal.”

University of Cambridge professor Gina Neff told the BBC the incident “shows why independent testing and government oversight is crucial.”

“The moral of this story is not to fear robots that will take over, but the companies behind powerful AI agents who are making the decisions about what is safe for the rest of us,” she told the outlet.

July 31 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of State announced it will expand access to the Trump passports, previously only available in Washington, D.C.

“In response to overwhelming demand, the Department of State is making an additional 250,000 of the special commemorative passports available to the public. Americans all across the country will now have the opportunity to apply for one of these additional special passports, known as the ‘Patriot Passport,'” a press release said Thursday.

Passport offices in Centennial, Colo.; Chicago; Dallas; Detroit; Minneapolis; New Orleans; and Stamford, Conn., will host application events on Aug. 8. Other passport offices will do the same in later weeks.

The State Department announced the new passport in April, and a design was released in June that showed an image of President Donald Trump and an image of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The new design is to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

“Since its release in celebration of 250 years of American independence, the commemorative passport has generated extraordinary public interest,” the State Department said in the release. “The Department of State is responding by expanding access so Americans across the country can obtain this unique and special document.”

A State Department spokesperson told CNN the department has, “been flooded — by phone, on social media, and in-person at events like the Great American State Fair — by inquiries and requests to apply for the Patriot Passport.

“That includes over 30,000 of Americans who have phoned our passport call center since July 4 seeking a chance to apply for this passport,” the spokesperson said.

Trump is the first sitting president to have his image on a passport.

This fall, the U.S. Mint will release a $1 gold coin featuring Trump’s portrait in honor of the country’s birthday.

File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

July 31 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department has apologized for using an incorrectly labeled map of Africa during a presentation at the global AIDS conference in Brazil.

The presentation that took place on Sunday had a map that included six incorrectly identified countries and misshapen borders.

The map detailed about $500 billion in potential U.S. funding to Africa.

The State Department said in a statement that it takes “full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.”

The map included an AI watermark.

Nigeria, Mozambique and Ivory Coast are placed in the completely incorrect locations on the map. Malawi and Uganda are in the generally correct region but the borders are unrecognizable. Cameroon is named on the map but it does not have a line marking its location like the other countries and is in the wrong location..

Mozambique was marked in the eastern horn of Africa, rather than its correct position in the southern part of the continent.

Ivory Coast, or Côte d’Ivoire, a coastal nation as its name suggests, was landlocked in eastern Africa rather than its rightful place on the opposite side of the continent.

Cameroon was roughly where Ivory Coast belonged and just over half of its actual size.

Nigeria was in another incorrectly landlocked location, just north of its accurate placement on the western coast bordering Cameroon.

Uganda was the closest to its correct position, needing to be moved a few hundred miles to the west, but the border was completely wrong.

Malawi’s borders were also drawn incorrectly and it was too far to the south.

“What an embarrassment,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote on social media. “This is what happens when [the State Department] fires career experts and tries to have AI conduct diplomacy.”

July 30 (UPI) — Seattle Police Department Chief Shon Barnes resigned on Thursday, as city officials have come under criticism following a mass shooting Sunday at the Bite of Seattle food festival that left three people dead and four others wounded.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced that she had accepted Barnes’ resignation and said he “served this department and this city with dedication.”

“I share Chief Barnes’ hope that we can return our focus to addressing youth gun violence and ensuring that every family can feel safe in their neighborhood and across the city,” Wilson said in a Thursday afternoon press release.

His exit comes as city officials face mounting criticism over their response to the shooting, particularly the lack of communication with the public in its immediate aftermath. Barnes also faced criticism for being out of town when the shooting occurred, renewing scrutiny of how frequently he was away from Seattle.

In a statement issued to local media by his attorney, Barnes said Wilson had requested his resignation on Wednesday. Though he was “surprised” by the request, he believed that the city should be focused on investigating thee shooting, securing justice for the victims and helping the community heal.

“I want to emphasize that it has been one of the greatest honors to lead the Seattle Police Department and to serve the citizens of the City of Seattle,” he said.

Deputy Chief Andre Sayles has been named interim chief, according to the mayor’s office. Wilson said a thorough search will be conducted to find a permanent replacement.

In a recorded statement published to social media later Thursday, Wilson addressed criticism of the city’s lack of communication with the public, stating that a review “revealed real gaps.”

“Information could and should have gone out much faster through social media, the emergency alert system, the SPD blotter and-or an off-site press conference,” she said.

“The public should have heard sooner about outstanding suspects and the status of the Seattle Center campus.”

She vowed her office would work with the police department ensure that, if a similar situation arose again, information would released more quickly.

She acknowledged that she had been wrong to defend the city’s decision not to use its emergency system, saying the review revealed a miscommunication between departments that resulted in no alert being issued. She also cited a miscommunication between her office and the police department over the timing of a Sunday night press conference.

Following the shooting, SDP issued a statement on its social media platform. No further information was released by the department until a late-night press conference. The Seattle Fire Department provided UPI with an update on the shooting.

“What I did not fully understand in that moment was how little information had reached the public or the press since the incident began at 6 p.m.,” she said.

“Had I known that, I would have pushed for an immediate briefing, rather than waiting for a press conference to be organized.”

MyNorthwest, KING 5 and Fox 13 Seattle, citing unnamed sources, had earlier reported that Barnes had been dismissed.

Barnes, 51, was reportedly not in Seattle when the shooting took place. During a press conference on Monday, reporter Connor Nash of The South Seattle Emerald asked Barnes about reports that he is often out of town, leading to a heated confrontation.

“I don’t have to tell you where I go,” Barnes responded. “I have been working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here. Do you got that?”

Barnes was at the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives Conference in Dallas on Sunday when the shooting took place, he said.

Barnes was scheduled to give an interview with KING 5 on Wednesday but the interview was canceled about 30 minutes before it was set to begin.

Three people were killed and four others were wounded, including a 2-year-old, during the shooting at the food festival. Police say it was a targeted, gang-related shooting.

A 15-year-old was arrested at the scene. A 19-year-old suspected to have been involved in the shooting was among those killed. The 15-year-old was charged on Wednesday with one count each of assault in the first degree with a firearm enhancement and unlawful possession of a firearm in the second degree.

The Seattle Police Department has published Barnes’ 2026 schedule to date, showing four trips to Chicago and some trips to conferences.

Barnes was appointed Seattle’s police chief in 2024 by then-Mayor Bruce Harrell. Wilson retained Barnes when she became mayor on Jan. 1. He was the police chief in Madison, Wis., from 2021 until taking the position in Seattle.

Barnes has overseen reductions in violent crime during his tenures in Madison and Seattle.

Prior to Sunday’s shooting at the food festival, there had been 15 homicides recorded in Seattle. The city also recorded its first June since 1970 without a homicide. Homicides have decreased in Seattle each year since recording 74 in 2023.

Barnes also oversaw an increase in female representation during his tenure with the Madison Police Department. The rate of female staff increased to 28%.

July 30 (UPI) — The ABC network has accused the Federal Communications Commission of attempting to censor what it broadcasts by pressuring its local stations to apply for early renewal of their licenses.

In its regulatory filing, which is a response to the FCC’s request that ABC-owned broadcast stations reapply for their licenses, ABC alleged that FCC chair Brendan Carr’s criticism and actions at the agency have amounted to “attempted censorship,” Politico reported.

The network said in the filing that actions by the agency and Carr have been aimed at shaping news reports across the media in ways that violate U.S. Constitutional freedom of the press.

The FCC, in a statement on Thursday to The Hill, contended that it is operating in the public interest, based on what it said are “equal opportunity regulations” as it accused the network of operating “in the narrow or partisan interests of a political party.”

The Trump administration, and President Donald Trump, have long alleged that members of the media — print, online or television — who are critical or engage in satire of him during his two terms as president are violating federal law.

“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” the network said in the filing.

“Across the government, regulatory and contracting carrots and sticks have been trained on other disfavored speakers,” ABC said. “The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely.”

July 30 (UPI) — A Falcon 9 rocket topped with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office launched from Florida’s east coast early Thursday.

The rocket launched at 3:10 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Little information about the NROL-95 mission has been made public aside from the fact that the payload was designed, built and will be operated by the NRO. The broadcast of the launch was restricted at the request of the NRO, SpaceX said, with the second stage two and deployment of the payload not shown.

The first-stage booster, on its seventh flight, returned to Earth and successfully landed at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

It was the 88th Falcon launch of the year and the 12th this month, according to SpaceX.

There was a 30% chance of weather-related launch constraints, with a backup launch scheduled for Friday.

July 30 (UPI) — A federal jury has convicted the New Jersey man who attempted to murder writer Salman Rushdie on additional terrorism-related charges, including attempting to provide material support to the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah.

Hadi Matar of Fairview, N.J., was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a state court in May 2025 for trying to kill Rushdie on Aug. 12, 2022.

Matar rushed the stage and stabbed the India-born writer at New York’s Chautauqua Institution in Mayville, N.Y., before being subdued by audience members and taken into police custody. Rushdie lost vision in his right eye and suffered nerve damage as a result of the attack.

A federal jury in the Western District of New York on Wednesday convicted Matar on charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, engaging in an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries and providing material support to terrorists. Matar faces a maximum penalty of life in prison on the most serious charge when sentenced on Nov. 3.

“Hadi Matar, who was born and raised in the United States, chose to align his values with the terroristic values of the leaders of Iran, which often promote violence, and in this case, the call for murder,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York Michael DiGiacomo said in a statement.

“The defendant spent months planning and preparing to carry out what he hoped would be the execution of Salman Rushdie and possibly follow in the footsteps of martyrs he admired. Instead, his attempted act of terror failed, and Salman Rushdie survived, thanks to courageous members of the public and law enforcement, who saved Rushdie and captured Matar.”

The trial began July 22, and Rushdie, 79, testified.

DiGiacomo said Rushdie answered every question asked of him by the defense and prosecutors.

“It was very powerful,” DiGiacomo said.

“And at the end, at some point, Mr. Rushdie removed his glasses so the jury could see the extent of the injury to his eye that he no longer has vision it.”

Prosecutors said Matar was attempting to carry out the orders of Iran’s late spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in 1989 called for Rushdie’s murder after the publication of his award-winning novel The Satanic Verses on the grounds that it was blasphemous to Islam.

The fatwa was reaffirmed in 2017 by Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, and endorsed by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah was killed Sept. 27, 2024, in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut, while Khamenei was killed Feb. 28 in joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Federal prosecutors said during the trial that Matar had spent more than a year researching the fatwa before deciding to try to kill Rushdie and discussed it with people in Iran, Australia and Canada.

According to the Justice Department, Matar had surrounded himself with Hezbollah symbols ahead of the attack and had traveled to the institution that day with a false driver’s license bearing the name Hassan Mughniyeh, with Hassan being Nasrallah’s first name and Mughniyeh being the surname of Hezbollah’s former external security organization head, Imad Mughniyeh.

DiGiacomo told reporters following the conviction that ahead of the attack, Matar traveled by bus from New Jersey to Buffalo, then traveled toward the Chautauqua Institution.

On the morning of the attack, Matar visited a website run by Hezbollah and took screenshots of Hezbollah operatives who had died that month.

“The evidence presented in the trial showed that this attack was not spontaneous. It was deliberate. It was research. It was planned. It was motivated by violent extremist ideology,” Alan Davis, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office, said during the press conference.

“For more than a year, the defendant researched a decades-old fatwa, communicated with individuals overseas about carrying it out and embraced the propaganda and symbols of Hezbollah before traveling to western New York to commit this violent act.”

July 29 (UPI) — The stock market opened with the Dow falling 400 points on Wednesday ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee’s latest interest rate decision.

The committee will announce its decision on Wednesday afternoon with Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh making his second address since being appointed. Economic indicators point to the Fed holding interest rates at a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%.

“My colleagues and I recognize that high inflation has been an undue burden on American households and businesses,” Warsh said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier this month. “The members of our committee have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation and we share a resolute commitment to restore price stability.”

The war in Iran has increased economic pressure, driven by rising fuel costs as the United States and Iran use the crucial Strait of Hormuz as a point of negotiation. The annual inflation rate rose to 4.2% in May on the back of rising gas prices.

The Federal Reserve has maintained a target goal of 2% annual inflation rate.

The average fuel price in the United States is $4.09 per gallon for regular grade gasoline on Wednesday, AAA reports.

The Federal Reserve will announce its interest rate decision at 2 p.m. EDT, followed by an address by Warsh at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

July 28 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate voted 51-47 along party lines Tuesday evening to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, succeeding Bill Pulte.

The vote comes one day after lawmakers voted to advance Clayton’s nomination with no Democrats voting to approve.

After the vote Tuesday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he is skeptical of Clayton in the role.

“I came away from his confirmation process with serious reservations about whether he would be willing to stand up to political pressure when it matters most,” Warner said. “Now that he has been confirmed, I sincerely hope he proves those concerned unfounded, because the intelligence community deserves steadier leadership than it has received in recent months.”

Bill Pulte, the acting director, announced Tuesday on social media that he had executed “a fifth and near-final round of TERMINATIONS” that mark a 30% staff reduction during his time in the office.

On July 15, Democrats in the Senate questioned Clayton, a U.S. attorney, on Trump’s allegations that he won the 2020 election. Clayton wouldn’t say that former President Joe Biden won the election, but would say that he was “certified” as president. Clayton said he is not an election denier.

“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said the confirmation hearing. “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions?

President Donald Trump announced Clayton as his nominee in June as senators on both sides of the aisle protested the placement of Pulte. Pulte runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency and has referred four of Trump’s perceived enemies for prosecution on allegations of mortgage fraud.

Democrats in the House wouldn’t renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a bill that would have extended warrantless spy powers rules, in retaliation for Pulte being named for the position. It’s unclear if the Senate will vote to extend FISA once Clayton is approved.

The House will not be back in session until September.

Tulsi Gabbard resigned from the ODNI in May.