AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EST

The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences. Places deemed safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire; energy prices shot up; and U.S. allies pledged to help stop Iranian missiles and drones.

Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.”

As the conflict spiraled, the State Department urged U.S. citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to safety risks.

“The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters before briefing members of Congress about the Iran operation.

Hegseth insists the Iran conflict is 'not endless' while warning more casualties are likely

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke Monday to widening concerns that the U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran could spiral into a protracted regional conflict by declaring: “This is not Iraq. This is not endless," even as he warned that more American casualties are likely in the weeks ahead.

While the Trump administration has cited Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the chief concern to be addressed, officials increasingly are pointing to the threat from Iran’s ballistic missiles as a key reason to launch the attacks as well as an opportunity to take out the government’s leadership and the sense that negotiations around the nuclear program have stalled.

Trump said Monday that Iran’s conventional missile program “was growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas.”

Hegseth said at a separate press conference with Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the operation had a “decisive mission” to eliminate the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, destroy the country’s navy and ensure “no nukes.”

Trump, Hegseth and Caine have not suggested any exit plan or offered signs that the conflict would end anytime soon as the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast doubt on the future of the Islamic Republic and hurtled the region into broader instability. Caine said the biggest U.S. military buildup in the Middle East in decades would only grow because the commander in the region “will receive additional forces even today.”

Bill Clinton tries to distance himself from Epstein in videos released from his testimony last week

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton distanced himself from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in closed-door depositions with lawmakers, according to videos that were released Monday by a House committee.

The recordings of the depositions, which spanned hours over two days last week, show how Bill Clinton told the committee that he had ended his relationship with Epstein years before the financier entered a 2008 guilty plea to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Hillary Clinton told the committee she never even recalled meeting Epstein.

Both closed-door interviews before the House Oversight Committee were taken under oath Thursday and Friday.

The Clintons' testimony came as lawmakers are trying to meet demands for a reckoning over Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 in New York while facing charges for sex trafficking and abusing underage girls. High-status men around the world have been forced into resignations because of revelations about their relationships with Epstein, but so far there are few signs in the U.S. of serious legal consequences coming.

The former Democratic president said he first remembered meeting Epstein when he flew aboard the financier's private jet in 2002 for the Clintons' humanitarian work, and they parted ways the year after.

What to know about the deadly shooting at a Texas bar and the gunman

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A gunman in Texas opened fire on a crowded bar in Austin's busy nightlife district over the weekend before being fatally shot by police in an attack that authorities were investigating as a potential act of terrorism.

The shooting early Sunday killed two people and wounded 14 others. The suspect was wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and the words “Property of Allah," a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

The mass shooting happened after the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran. The FBI and Austin police said they were still looking into the motive behind the attack, which sent people in the bar and surrounding streets scrambling for cover.

Here's what to know about the shooting:

Police said the gunman drove past Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden before circling back and firing the first shots from his SUV at people on the sidewalk and inside the bar early Sunday.

Supreme Court blocks law against schools outing transgender students to their parents in California

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for California schools to tell parents if their children identify as transgender without getting the student's approval, granting an emergency appeal from a conservative legal group.

The order blocks for now a state law that bans automatic parental notification requirements if students change their pronouns or gender expression at school.

The split decision comes after religious parents and educators challenged California school policies aimed at preventing schools from outing students to their families. Two sets of Catholic parents represented by the Thomas More Society say it caused schools to mislead them and secretly facilitate the children's social transition despite their objections.

California, on the other hand, argued that students have the right to privacy about their gender expression, especially if they fear rejection from their families. The state said that school policies and state law are aimed at striking a balance with parents’ rights.

The high court majority, though, sided with the parents and reinstated a lower-court order blocking the law and school policies while the case continues to play out.

In Their Words: How Trump's and his administration's statements on Iran evolved and conflicted

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iran last summer, he and his administration repeatedly declared that the attacks had obliterated the Middle Eastern country's nuclear program and set back its ability to make a nuclear weapon for years.

In the immediate runup to Saturday’s strikes with Israel on Iran, however, Trump and members of his administration began issuing more urgent warnings about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It was among the shifting — and often openly contradictory — messages sent on Iran.

After widespread protests erupted in Iran in January, for example, Trump repeatedly threatened military strikes — only to back off after he said he was assured Tehran had halted killing protesters and not carried out planned executions — except international observers say the death toll from a crackdown over the protests exceeded 7,000. At the same time, following years of scoffing at, and openly campaigning against, the idea that previous conservatives administrations had been advocates for “regime change” missions, Trump seemed to change his mind and warm to the idea.

In the aftermath of Saturday's attacks, the president and other officials have offered multiple reasons they said the latest strikes on Iran were necessary — some of which conflict with what they said over the past eight months.

—“THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED!” — Trump in a June 24, 2025, post on Truth Social.

FACT FOCUS: Misrepresented images spread after US and Israel strike Iran

As the U.S. and Israel continued to strike Iran on Monday following a major attack over the weekend that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, misrepresented images related to the war spread widely online.

They presented years-old footage as current, falsely claimed that U.S. military vehicles had been destroyed and erroneously claimed to show casualties of the war.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: An image shows Khamenei's body under a pile of rubble.

Minnesota launches investigation that could bring charges against federal immigration officers

A Minnesota prosecutor announced an investigation Monday that may lead to charges against federal officers, including Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, for misconduct during an immigration enforcement crackdown.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a news conference that her office is already looking into 17 cases, including one where Bovino threw a smoke canister at protesters on Jan. 21. Another on Jan. 7 involved federal officers making an arrest outside a high school and deploying chemical irritants while students and staff were in the area.

“Make no mistake, we are not afraid of the legal fight, and we are committed to doing this correctly,” Moriarty said. “Operation Metro Surge caused immeasurable harm to our community.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol, and Bovino did not immediately return a request for comment.

Bovino, who emerged as a key figure in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations, is known for bringing aggressive tactics to crackdowns in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago and Los Angeles. In Chicago, federal officers frequently deployed chemical irritants as crowd control measures in residential neighborhoods, and a judge ordered Bovino to wear a body camera and appear in court daily to answer questions about the crackdown. That order was overturned before his first mandated appearance.

Savannah Guthrie returns to her mother’s home in first sighting there since disappearance

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie and her sister returned to their mother’s home outside Tucson on Monday in their first sighting at the house since Nancy Guthrie went missing a month ago.

In video captured by NewsNation and FOX News Digital, the NBC anchor, her sister Annie Guthrie and brother-in-law Tommaso Cioni can be seen walking arm-in-arm down the driveway, placing down yellow flowers and embracing each other in a tearful scene.

The makeshift tribute at the edge of the property includes flowers, yellow ribbons, crosses, prayers, a sign that read “Let Nancy Come Home” and a statuette of an angel.

Later on Monday, Savannah Guthrie posted a photo of flowers at the tribute.

“we feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country,” Guthrie wrote, ending the sentence with a heart emoji. “please don’t stop praying and hoping with us. bring her home.”

US stocks erase sharp losses, while oil prices leap on worries about Iran war

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices leaped Monday on worries that war with Iran could clog the global flow of crude and make inflation even worse. U.S. stocks, meanwhile, swung from sharp losses to a tiny gain.

Crude prices jumped more than 6%, which will likely mean higher prices soon at gasoline pumps. That would hurt not only U.S. households, whose spending makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy, but also businesses with big fuel bills.

The S&P 500 fell as much as 1.2% at the start of trading, and cruise lines and airlines led the way lower. But U.S. stocks quickly erased those losses, in part because past military conflicts haven’t usually created sustained drops for the market, and the index finished the day with a gain of less than 0.1%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 73 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.4%. Both also came back from steep early losses.

Prices for natural gas remained higher, meanwhile, which could raise heating bills for the remainder of the winter, after a major supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe said it would stop production because of the war. Gold climbed 1.2% as investors looked for safer things to own and as U.S. officials tried to persuade the world that this war will not last forever.