The Latest: Trump says Iran 'wants to make a deal' but the Islamic Republic denies any talks

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U.S. President Donald Trump extended his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, saying the U.S. will hold off striking Iranian power plants for five more days.

Trump said U.S. envoys have been holding talks with a “respected” Iranian leader, and Iran wants “to make a deal.” Iranian officials denied any such negotiations, and declared that the American leader had backed down “following Iran’s firm warning.”

Relief ripped through financial markets Monday as oil prices eased following severe losses prior to Trump’s announcement. Financial markets have had vicious swings, both up and down, since the war began because of uncertainty about how long it may last.

Trump also said the U.S. would seek to retrieve Iran’s enriched uranium and end its nuclear program as part of a deal, telling reporters: “We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon. Not even close to it.”

The death toll has risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran, more than 1,000 in Lebanon, 15 in Israel and 13 U.S. military members, as well as a number of civilians on land and sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.

Here is the latest:

About 143,000 low- and middle-income households with children who already qualify for a working families tax credit will receive an extra 50 New Zealand dollars ($29) per week, New Zealand Finance Minister Nicola Willis told reporters in Wellington on Tuesday. Those on welfare aren’t eligible.

“Those most affected by the global shockwave hitting the New Zealand economy are low and middle-income families who cannot easily avoid higher fuel costs,” Willis said in her government’s first major fiscal policy response to the war in the Middle East.

A further 14,000 households will become eligible for a lower rate of the credit, which begins April 7 and could run for up to a year, or until the price of the most commonly-used gasoline in New Zealand drops below 3 New Zealand dollars ($1,75) per liter for four consecutive weeks, Willis said.

A semiofficial Iranian news agency close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard reported early Tuesday that two energy sites had been struck by airstrikes.

The report by the Fars news agency appeared timed to call into question comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, who extended his deadline for Tehran to halt its attacks that have effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. Trump had threatened to strike Iranian power plants.

Fars claimed an attack struck natural gas infrastructure in Isfahan, while another “targeted” a gas pipeline for the Khorramshahr power plant.

Neither Israel nor the U.S. had claimed strikes in the area on Monday, though both countries don’t always acknowledge their attacks. It also wasn’t immediately clear if those sites had been specifically targeted or damaged in strikes hitting other sites in the area.

Bahrain activated its missile alert sirens early Tuesday as Kuwait said its air defenses were trying to shoot down incoming fire.

Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said early Tuesday that it destroyed at least 19 drones in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province.

Kuwait’s energy ministry said early Tuesday that seven high-voltage power lines were damaged by shrapnel from air defense operations, causing partial outages in several areas.

Crews are working to restore electricity, the statement added.

A commander in the Popular Mobilization Forces, Saad Dawai al-Baiji, was killed along with several others in an airstrike that targeted its command headquarters in the western province of Anbar, the Shiite group said in a statement early Tuesday.

The PMF, which is formally placed under the control of the Iraqi military but in practice still operates with significant autonomy, accused the U.S. of carrying out the strike.

Since the Iran war started, PMF locations in Anbar and other parts of Iraq have come under repeated airstrikes. Some groups within the coalition have periodically launched drone attacks on bases housing U.S. troops.

Israel’s Magen David Adom medical service said it dispatched its teams to several locations in Haifa and Nesher, a smaller city just southeast of Haifa, and treated a man in his 30s with minor injuries after he stepped on shrapnel.

Search and rescue teams operated at a site in northern Israel following reports of an impact, the Home Front Command said early Tuesday.

The public was urged to avoid gathering in the area. The statement came some time after the Israeli military warned that missiles had been launched from Iran toward Israel.

The Israeli military carried out overnight strikes on multiple neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday, saying it was targeting Hezbollah infrastructure. No injuries were immediately reported.

Low-flying jets were heard over the city as the strikes took place.

The military had earlier renewed evacuation warnings for several neighborhoods, as tens of thousands of residents had already fled the area.

Large fires and plumes of smoke were seen rising across the southern suburbs following the strikes.

Israeli strikes have so far killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced around 1 million others, according to Lebanese authorities.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations is making the case that military cooperation between Russia and Iran, including on drones, “constitutes an enormous threat to international security” during the war in the Middle East.

Andriy Melnyk told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that Russia is providing intelligence support, including satellite imagery and other data, to help Iran target U.S. military assets in the region. He said there also is sufficient evidence that Russia, which now produces an advanced version of the initially Iran-designed Shahed drone, is now sending these attack drones to Iran.

He urged the U.S. and the international community to take the threat seriously, saying Russia’s supply of drones would allow Iran to keep striking targets across the Middle East.

Melnyk said that providing Ukraine with the means to hit drone production sites deep inside Russia and helping Ukraine ramp up its own production of long-range missiles “would support collective efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr al-Busaidi, who had played a key mediating role between Iran and the U.S., held a phone call on Monday to discuss developments in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s state media reported.

The two sides “agreed to continue bilateral consultations,” according to the report.

A cautious relief swept through financial markets after Trump said the U.S. has talked with Iran about a possible end to the war.

Oil prices eased Monday, and stock prices jumped on Wall Street following severe losses taken elsewhere in the world before Trump’s announcement.

The S&P 500 rallied 1.1% for its best day since the war began. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.4%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.4%.

Brent crude fell back below $100 per barrel.

But the moves were even sharper in the morning, before Iranian officials denied that talks were underway.

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The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates Iran had 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of highly enriched uranium as of June 13, 2025.

Iran has already done 99% of the centrifuge work needed to enrich its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons grade, and may have enough uranium for about nine bombs, said Robert Goldston, a Princeton University professor and a researcher in arms control and fusion energy.

If further enriched, Iran’s uranium could yield material for roughly nine nuclear weapons according to IAEA calculations, Goldston said.

Goldston said Iran may have the centrifuge capacity to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb about every month. The IAEA has not fully monitored Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing since 2021.

“That’s something we should be worried about,” he said.

Goldston added it would be “well worth it” for the United States to negotiate removing or down-blending the highly enriched uranium.

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“For now, it appears they managed to avert an energy catastrophe” that would result if Trump attacked Iran’s energy facilities and Iran responded, said the Gulf diplomat.

An Egyptian official has also told The Associated Press that the U.S. and Iran exchanged messages through Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan over the weekend.

Both officials were not authorized to speak with journalists and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A birthday beach trip. Weekend jaunts with the kids. Even a bedtime beer.

As gas prices remain high, people are stretching their paychecks, giving up small comforts as everyday costs bloat and they try to keep up with their biggest bills.

“For now, we’re still managing to hold on,” said Luis Catalano, a taxi driver waiting to fuel up at a gas station in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “But I don’t know for how long.”

Around the globe, it seems many can agree that the spike in gas is just the latest blow for average people who’ve grown accustomed to relentless high costs.

“Everything is going up,” said Felicia Iwasa, of Lagos, Nigeria. “The economy is not easy for us.”

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The president, who has often compared himself to Elvis Presley, said during an appearance in Tennessee on Monday that he’d be visiting the home of the King of Rock and Roll. “I love Elvis,” he declared.

Trump’s side trip to a top tourist attraction presents a stark contrast to the domestic and international issues Trump spoke about at the beginning of his remarks in Memphis.

Although Trump noted that he had ordered a “temporary” halt to planned strikes on Iranian power plants, American forces are still embroiled in the sprawling regional conflict, in which at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

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Netanyahu says Israel will continue to strike Iran and Lebanon as the U.S. considers a ceasefire.

Netanyahu says he spoke to Trump, who told him “there is a chance” to leverage battlefield gains into an agreement that realizes the war's objectives.

“At the same time, we continue to strike, both in Iran and in Lebanon,” he said. “There’s more to come. We will protect our vital interests in any situation.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says the war against Hezbollah must end with a “fundamental change” that includes control of Lebanon up to the Litani River, roughly 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the Israeli border.

“The Litani must be our new border with the state of Lebanon,” he told members of his Religious Zionism party on Monday, comparing it to boundaries Israel has set in Gaza and the Golan Heights.

Israel already has sent thousands of troops into southern Lebanon as it moves to push Hezbollah militants north. Smotrich leads a small ultranationalist party and is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policymaking Security Cabinet.

Four Jewish charity ambulances were set afire Monday in London. British police said they are investigating it as an antisemitic hate crime while detectives work to determine the authenticity of a claim of responsibility from a group with alleged links to Iran.

Although it has not been classified as a terrorist incident, counterterror officers are leading the investigation. No one was injured in the nighttime attack, which left the vehicles charred shells.

A video posted on Telegram, allegedly by an Islamist group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, showed a map of the location and video of the ambulances on fire. A group using the same name previously claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

“Establishing the accuracy of this claim is a priority for the investigating team,” Security Minister Dan Jarvis said.

Israel’s government has called it a recently founded group with suspected links to pro-Iran networks.

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During Monday’s phone call, Pakistan’s top diplomat emphasized the importance of dialogue and diplomacy in promoting “peace, security and stability in the region and beyond” according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Washington and Tehran exchanged the “messages” over the weekend through Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, an Egyptian official said.

The exchanges aimed at averting strikes on energy infrastructure in Iran and the wider region, he said.

“This is the top priority now,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

— By Samy Magdy

Pete Hegseth touted the need to boost defense manufacturing during a morale-boosting appearance last month at one of the U.S. Navy’s largest shipbuilding contractors. Now 627 designers, clerks and technicians at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works have gone on strike, just as the U.S. intensifies its war effort in Iran.

They voted to reject the shipyard’s proposed wage offer of 10.1% in the first year followed by 4% in each of the following three years.

General Dynamics “continues to make record profits off our labor,” union President Trent Vellella said in a statement. “We had hoped the company took to heart the statements made by Secretary Hegseth here at GD BIW on February 9th because, our membership certainly did.”

General Dynamics said it will continue operations at the shipyard, which has built naval ships for more than a century. Its total workforce is about 6,800.

Britain summoned Iran’s ambassador, Seyed Ali Mousavi, to protest what it called Tehran’s “reckless and destabilising actions” after two men were charged last week with spying on London’s Jewish community on behalf of Iran.

The Foreign Office said the U.K. takes threats from Iran and its proxies “extremely seriously.”

Trump said his administration has been negotiating with Iran “for a long time” and he believes a deal is close. But he didn't clarify who's been involved in the talks. Iran's parliament speaker and foreign minister denied again Monday that any such negotiations have happened.

“They want peace,” Trump said. “They’ve agreed they will not have a nuclear weapon, you know, et cetera, et cetera, but we’ll see.”

In his remarks in Memphis on Monday, Trump said there’s a “very good chance” of a deal this week. He credited his threat to blow up Iranian power plants, which he then paused for another five days. “Then we’re going to see where that takes us,” he said.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said its top diplomat Ishaq Dar spoke with his Turkish counterpart on Monday, urging continued diplomacy as Islamabad steps up its outreach in the region.

Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact last year saying any attack on either nation is an attack on both.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. Turkey has been an intermediary in past talks between Tehran and Washington.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment Monday on whether the country had relayed messages between Iran and the U.S. on Sunday, Turkish officials said Fidan had also spoken to his counterparts from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and the European Union, as well as with U.S. officials as part of efforts to end the war.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Cairo has delivered “clear messages” to Iran focusing on de-escalating the conflict, according to his office. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said it was making “constant efforts and communications” with all parties.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that the U.K. was ware of talks between the U.S. and Iran, but told British lawmakers “we mustn’t fall into the false comfort of thinking that there will necessarily be a quick and early end to this.”

Without naming specific countries, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, said in a statement that “deliberate attacks on essential services and civilian infrastructure can amount to war crimes.”

She said the trend isn’t unique to the region or the current war, “but what we have seen in recent days in the Middle East risks reaching a point of no return.”

Earlier Monday, Jamal Abdi, head of the National Iranian American Council, said Trump “threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants is a threat to millions of civilians.”

“This is not a ‘targeted’ strike. This is collective punishment,” Abdi said.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said Monday that 10 people had been killed over the past 24 hours.

At least 118 children and 79 women were among those killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the outbreak of a new Israel-Hezbollah war, the ministry said.

The ministry said 90 more people were also wounded, raising the total number of injured to at least 2,876.

The role of Israel’s hijacking of Iran’s street cameras in the killing of the country’s supreme leader shows how surveillance systems are increasingly being used for targeting in wartime.

Hundreds of millions of internet-connected and poorly secured cameras have been installed above shops, in homes and on street corners across the world. Artificial intelligence now enables militaries and intelligence agencies to search through vast amounts of data to identify targets.

On Feb. 28, Israel vividly demonstrated the potential by locating Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei despite repeated warnings that Iran’s surveillance systems had been compromised, according to interviews and an Associated Press review of leaked data, public statements and news reports.

The use of hacked surveillance cameras among other intelligence to kill Khamenei was described to the AP by an intelligence official with knowledge of the operation and another person who was briefed on the operation. Neither was authorized to speak with the media and both shared information on condition of anonymity.

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“I think any attacks on infrastructure are causing chaos in the region and really escalating this war even further,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at a news conference in Nigeria.

Surging energy prices have pushed EU leaders to consider cost-cutting steps, including expanding renewables, adjusting taxes, pursuing new trade deals and scrapping carbon credits.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright says disruptions in the global oil market are “temporary” and says price hikes caused by the Iran war are not yet steep enough to trigger a significant drop in demand.

“Prices have not risen high enough yet to drive meaningful demand destruction,” Wright said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

Oil prices have climbed to more than $100 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices surged to nearly $4 a gallon. But Wright said “pragmatic solutions” to release oil from a strategic reserve and allow sanctioned oil already in transit to enter the market should help mitigate the price shocks.

He said Asia has been the most deeply affected by the supply disruptions.