AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

US and Canada fall deeper into a trade war with new tariffs as talks collapse and blame is spread

TORONTO (AP) — The United States and Canada, historic allies along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade war Saturday marked by angry recriminations and new tariffs that are expected to raise prices for products in both countries.

Each side blamed the other for the collapse of negotiations in Washington late Friday, leading the U.S. to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods and Canada setting Sept. 8 as the start of its retaliatory penalties.

President Donald Trump’s import taxes will hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors. Prime Minister Carney said Ottawa would respond with targeted tariff protection for industries exposed to the new U.S. duties, including some steel products. He also mentioned the dairy, appliance, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics sectors.

No further talks were planned. Whatever the eventual outcome, a loss of trust seems one of the earliest casualties.

Carney accused Washington of using “economic integration as a weapon” and said “its signature was written in pencil.” Resorting to the language of battle, he said his country had been “attacked” by the new American tariffs. “You’re at war when you get attacked,” he said, adding that Canada had the reserves, resilience and plan to respond.

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What to know about Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods and rising tensions between once-close allies

CHICAGO (AP) — After trade negotiations crumbled at the eleventh hour, U.S. President Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on scores of Canadian imports kicked in over the weekend.

The new levies, which went into effect Saturday, are set to impact about 5% of Canada’s annual exports to the U.S. — or $20 billion in goods ranging from hockey sticks to agricultural products. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney quickly promised that his government would roll out “dollar for dollar” retaliatory measures starting Sept. 8.

Additional threats have piled up in the meantime. Ontario Premier Doug Ford told The Associated Press on Monday that “everything is on the table,” noting his province would be ready to cut off electricity and critical minerals to the U.S. if the trade war worsens. Meanwhile, Trump suggested his administration could also up its tax on Canadian automobiles next year.

The U.S. and Canada once held one of the world’s most durable trade alliances, but the latest escalation plunges the North American neighbors deeper into a rupture that has kept both sides of the border on edge throughout Trump’s second term in office. Steeper tariffs raise costs for businesses — and almost always trickle down to households in the form of higher prices.

Here’s what we know.

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Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on mail voting restrictions ahead of midterms

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court opened a path Monday for possible implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting, though it remains unclear how much can be put in place before the fast-approaching midterm elections.

The decision leaves room for additional court challenges that could further slow Trump’s order, and other similar cases have already been filed. The U.S. Postal Service laid out how it would implement the order last week, but time is running short to impose major changes. North Carolina is sending out ballots Sept. 4 overseas and to military voters, and other states will quickly follow suit in just a few weeks.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority didn’t decide the legality of Trump’s order, instead ruling that states who sued did not have the legal right to challenge it.

While the emergency order is not final, it does have the potential to create chaos around voting across the country, with Trump often questioning the integrity of elections and the nation’s highest court again the possible arbiter of a political controversy.

“The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell,” the majority wrote in an unsigned order.

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Trump’s ‘economic D-Day’ threats become warnings for countries to sever financial ties with Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new round of sanctions aimed at Iran on Monday and warned every country that does business with the Islamic Republic to sever those financial ties or face retaliation from the United States.

President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to unleash an “economic D-Day” against Tehran turned out to be new warnings to cut off Iran from the rest of the global economy. Asked why the U.S. was not imposing secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners, Bessent told reporters he wanted countries to have an opportunity to shift away from Iran before it was too late.

“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent said.

The Trump administration is struggling to find an off-ramp nearly six months into an unpopular war with an increasingly obstinate Iran. Diminishing stockpiles of key weapons appear to have forced U.S. officials to pivot to economic warfare, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said later Monday that he was not ruling out resuming strikes to hit Iran during a lull in hostilities.

Washington had promised new sanctions would put even more pressure on an Iranian economy already battered by previous penalties and a U.S. naval blockade.

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Iran warns of a harsh response as US announces new sanctions and other Middle East news

Iran warned that new U.S. sanctions on Tehran announced Monday would not bring peace to the region. Meanwhile, Israeli and Syrian officials met less than a week after Israeli strikes in Syria. And Israel said it killed a Hamas commander in Gaza.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Monday. Full coverage can be found here.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned that Tehran would respond harshly to expanded U.S. sanctions, including measures against countries it sees as cooperating with Washington.

“Any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences,” Esmail Baghaei said. “Our hands are not tied.”

The new head of Iran’s top security body warned Sunday that Tehran will see any country’s support for the sanctions as an “act of war.”

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Firefighters make progress against a Nevada wildfire that’s destroyed more than 30 homes

RENO, Nevada (AP) — Crews have started to contain a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Reno, Nevada, that destroyed more than 30 homes as it spread perilously close to dense neighborhoods, officials said Monday.

Containment reached 27% and there was no new growth of the Hawk Fire, which has held steady at about 23 square miles (60 square kilometers) since it burned out of control on Sunday, authorities said at an afternoon news briefing.

“We are making progress,” said U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Matt Zumstein.

The number of residents under evacuation orders and warnings was reduced to about 63,000, down from more than 90,000 people when the blaze mushroomed over the weekend. While winds have eased, there’s still concern that gusts could push the flames through dry brush into newly developed neighborhoods in Nevada’s largest city outside of metro Las Vegas.

Firefighters are also contending with hot temperatures and low humidity. At least 32 homes have burned and six are damaged, but authorities said those numbers are sure to rise as assessment teams begin to survey the charred areas.

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Newsom returns to a defining California fight: Who pays for wildfire damage?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The bookends of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s nearly eight years in office have been defined by a crucial question: Who should cover the cost of damage from wildfires caused by utility equipment?

The most destructive wildfire in state history, a blaze that killed 85 people and destroyed more than 18,000 buildings in Northern California, started two days after Newsom won the governorship in 2018. Investigators determined it was caused by Pacific Gas & Electric equipment. Facing tens of billions of dollars in liability, the giant utility filed for bankruptcy just weeks after Newsom’s inauguration.

Months later, Newsom signed a law creating a $21 billion fund, paid for by utility shareholders and ratepayers, to help utilities pay for wildfire damages if they take certain safety measures.

Now, as the final legislative session of his governorship ends, Newsom is trying to broker a deal with lawmakers aimed at further shielding utilities from financial trouble if their equipment sparks a wildfire. His push comes as another major utility, Southern California Edison, faces claims from the state’s second-most destructive blaze, a 2025 fire that killed 19 people outside of Los Angeles. Investigators ruled this month that it was sparked by one of the company’s transmission towers.

Newsom’s plan could limit the amount electric and gas companies have to pay victims and attorneys. One of the goals is to stabilize the state’s electricity rates, which are among the highest in the nation and have continued to climb in recent years. Utilities have raised rates to pay for wildfire prevention and recovery as climate change has made the blazes more intense and frequent. Six of the state’s 10 most destructive wildfires have been caused by utility equipment.

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European leaders mark Ukraine’s 35th Independence Day as Russian invasion pushes on

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — European leaders joined President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and boost its long-range missile program as Russia pressed on with its 4-year-old invasion of the country.

One of President Vladimir Putin’s key goals in starting a war with Russia’s neighbor in February 2022 was to return Kyiv to Moscow’s orbit. Ukrainian lawmakers voted on Aug. 24, 1991, to proclaim the country’s independence, and a nationwide referendum later that year overwhelmingly approved it.

With no significant changes on the front line for months and no apparent progress after more than a year of U.S.-led peace efforts, both countries are locked in a spiral of escalating aerial attacks that are killing civilians and smashing infrastructure.

U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, on his first overseas trip since taking office last month, joined almost a dozen other European leaders, as well as other dignitaries in Kyiv on Monday.

“For Ukraine, independence is not an abstract idea. We defended it against all odds,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media. “In times like these, nations learn how important it is to have allies by your side.”

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US strikes a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing 2 people in first attack in months

WASHINGTON (AP) — After a pause of more than two months, the U.S. military announced Monday that it once again carried out a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people accused of trafficking drugs.

It brings the overall death toll to 223 people killed in 67 strikes during the nearly yearlong U.S. campaign of bombing alleged drug boats off Latin America’s Caribbean coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. U.S. Southern Command says the campaign has resulted in the destruction of 64 speedboats, three “low-profile” ships and a semisubmersible craft.

The command said on social media early Monday that forces “executed a lethal kinetic strike on a low-profile vessel operating along established narcotrafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.” The military said the strike occurred Sunday, and it marked the first since powerful back-to-back June 24 earthquakes in Venezuela killed thousands of people.

As with most of the military’s statements, Southern Command did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs.

“We are committed to imposing total systemic friction on narco-terrorists — disrupting their operations, dismantling their leadership, and eliminating cartel terror across the region,” said Gen. Francis Donovan, who leads U.S. Southern Command.

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The world inches toward catastrophic climate events: ‘Bigger shocks are on the way’

NEW YORK (AP) — In the opening scene of American writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future,” a heat wave combined with a breakdown of the electrical grid in India kills 20 million people. The devastation causes the world’s nations to unite to combat climate change.

Scientists have long warned that the world will experience more intense extreme weather events like heat waves, storms, floods and droughts. But what once seemed like the realm of fiction is now discussed as a possibility, even an inevitability.

Warning about an “extreme of extremes” or the “Other Big One,” a play off the California reference of a big future earthquake, can be fraught. After all, nobody can say for sure when a weather catastrophe may happen. But in the last few years, the planetary ingredients needed for a massive disturbance have been building. And alarm is growing.

“The risk is that people just think you are exaggerating,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the California Institute for Water Resources. “It’s the ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ problem. Sometimes wolves are real. If it’s outside the door, wouldn’t you want to know?”

In the 1850s, while living in Seneca Falls, New York, amateur scientist Eunice Newton Foote did a series of experiments that put different substances, including carbon dioxide and moist air, inside glass cylinders and left them in the sun. What she found was extraordinary: cylinders with carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is released when coal, gas or oil is burned, heated up faster and took longer to cool after the sun went down.