By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president on Wednesday ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after American and Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities, likely further limiting inspectors’ ability to track Tehran’s program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

The order by President Masoud Pezeshkian included no timetables or details about what that suspension would entail. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled in a CBS News interview that Tehran still would be willing to continue negotiations with the United States.

“I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,” Araghchi said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments that talks could start as early as this week. However, he added: “The doors of diplomacy will never slam shut.”

Pressure tactic

Iran has limited IAEA inspections in the past as a pressure tactic in negotiating with the West — though as of right now Tehran has denied that there’s any immediate plans to resume talks with the United States that had been upended by the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

Related Articles

Hamas says it’s open to a Gaza truce but stops short of accepting a Trump-backed proposal

Today in History: July 2, Civil Rights Act signed into law

Mexican banks face cascading consequences following US sanctions

US won’t send some weapons pledged to Ukraine following a Pentagon review of military assistance

Barcelona records hottest June and Eiffel Tower’s summit closes as Europe sizzles

Iranian state television announced Pezeshkian’s order, which followed a law passed by Iran’s parliament to suspend that cooperation. The bill already received the approval of Iran’s constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, on Thursday, and likely the support of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, which Pezeshkian chairs.

“The government is mandated to immediately suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its related Safeguards Agreement,” state television quoted the bill as saying. “This suspension will remain in effect until certain conditions are met, including the guaranteed security of nuclear facilities and scientists.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what that would mean for the Vienna-based IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The agency long has monitored Iran’s nuclear program and said that it was waiting for an official communication from Iran on what the suspension meant.

A diplomat with knowledge of IAEA operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation in Iran, said that IAEA inspectors were still there after the announcement and hadn’t been told by the government to leave.

Israel condemns the move

Iran’s decision drew an immediate condemnation from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

“Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA,” he said in an X post. “This is a complete renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments.”

Saar urged European nations that were part of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal to implement its so-called snapback clause. That would reimpose all U.N. sanctions on it originally lifted by Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, if one of its Western parties declares the Islamic Republic is out of compliance with it.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, and the IAEA doesn’t have access to its weapons-related facilities.

Iran’s decision stops short of experts’ worst fears

Iran’s move so far stops short of what experts feared the most. They had been concerned that Tehran, in response to the war, could decide to fully end its cooperation with the IAEA, abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and rush toward a bomb. That treaty has countries agree not to build or obtain nuclear weapons and allows the IAEA to conduct inspections to verify that countries correctly declared their programs.

Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67% — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant, but far below the threshold of 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium. It also drastically reduced Iran’s stockpile of uranium, limited its use of centrifuges and relied on the IAEA to oversee Tehran’s compliance through additional oversight. The IAEA served as the main assessor of Iran’s commitment to the deal.

But Trump, in his first term in 2018, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it wasn’t tough enough and didn’t address Iran’s missile program or its support for militant groups in the wider Middle East. That set in motion years of tensions, including attacks at sea and on land.

Iran had been enriching up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. It also has enough of a stockpile to build multiple nuclear bombs, should it choose to do so. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003.

Suspension comes after Israel, US airstrikes

Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran’s nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon.

Iran has said the Israeli attacks killed 935 “Iranian citizens,” including 38 children and 102 women. However, Iran has a long history of offering lower death counts around unrest over political considerations.

The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said.

Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian officials now are assessing the damage done by the American strikes conducted on the three nuclear sites on June 22, including those at Fordo, a site built under a mountain about 60 miles southwest of Tehran.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show Iranian officials at Fordo on Monday likely examining the damage caused by American bunker busters. Trucks could be seen in the images, as well as at least one crane and an excavator at tunnels on the site. That corresponded to images shot Sunday by Maxar Technologies similarly showing the ongoing work.

Associated Press writers Stephanie Liechtenstein in Vienna, Amir Vahdat and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

Authorities say a Minneapolis man was charged with one count of second-degree attempted murder and one count of first-degree assault in connection with a May shooting at Kelley Park in Apple Valley.

Ibrahim Ali Mohamed, 20, was charged Tuesday in Dakota County District Court, according to the office of County Attorney Kathy Keena.

Shortly after midnight on May 10, officers were called to Kelley Park after a 911 caller said they saw a man with a black ski mask and gun in his waistband, according to court documents. While police were on the way to the park, 911 dispatchers received numerous calls about shots being fired there, including one call that a person had been shot.

Court documents state that Mohamed had been at the park a few hours earlier looking for his sister. While he was there he got into an argument and pulled a gun from under his sweatshirt. When someone grabbed at the gun to try to stop him from using it, he began hitting people with the weapon and pointing it at others.

Later, an 18-year-old man who had left the park received a phone call from someone saying that if he didn’t go back to the park, his friend was going to be killed. The 18-year-old drove back to the park. When he arrived, someone yelled at him, “Get out, they’re going to shoot.”

Then the man saw Mohamed about 100 feet away. The 18-year-old was shot in the face. Mohamed fled.

The 18-year-old was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and underwent surgery, prosecutors said.

During the investigation, Mohamed admitted to wearing a ski mask and that he shot at a car in the park. He said he fired about 10 rounds from a peanut butter-colored P80 handgun and said he didn’t know the passengers inside the car.

His phone and his friends’ social media posts contained multiple videos of him displaying firearms, including a P80.

On Monday, he was arrested on a warrant and booked into the Dakota County jail. His bail was set for $400,000 without conditions and $150,000 with conditions. He is next scheduled to appear in court on July 23 in Hastings.

Related Articles

St. Paul teen pleads guilty to machine gun possession, other felonies dismissed

St. Paul man gets probation for assault on Roseville officer at Walmart

St. Cloud trooper dies in reported drowning in South Dakota lake

14-year-old killed in St. Paul scooter-vehicle crash; 13-year-old critically injured

Columbia Heights teen found deceased weeks after he went missing

By FATMA KHALED, SAMY MAGDY and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — Hamas suggested Wednesday that it was open to a ceasefire agreement with Israel, but stopped short of accepting a U.S.-backed proposal announced by President Donald Trump hours earlier, insisting on its longstanding position that any deal bring an end to the war in Gaza.

Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen. The U.S. leader has been increasing pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas to broker a ceasefire, and hostage agreement and bring about an end to the war.

Related Articles

Today in History: July 2, Civil Rights Act signed into law

Mexican banks face cascading consequences following US sanctions

US won’t send some weapons pledged to Ukraine following a Pentagon review of military assistance

Barcelona records hottest June and Eiffel Tower’s summit closes as Europe sizzles

Hurricane Flossie could become a major hurricane off the Pacific coast of Mexico

Trump said the 60-day period would be used to work toward ending the war — something Israel says it won’t accept until Hamas is defeated. He said that a deal might come together as soon as next week.

But Hamas’ response, which emphasized its demand that the war end, raised questions about whether the latest offer could materialize into an actual pause in fighting.

Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said that the militant group was “ready and serious regarding reaching an agreement.”

He said Hamas was “ready to accept any initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war.”

A Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the proposal, according to an Egyptian official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the talks with the media.

Israel and Hamas disagree on how the war should end

Throughout the nearly 21-month-long war, ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over whether the war should end as part of any deal.

Hamas has said that it’s willing to free the remaining 50 hostages, less than half of whom are said to be alive, in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.

Israel says it will only agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms and exiles itself, something the group refuses to do.

An Israeli official said that the latest proposal calls for a 60-day deal that would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a surge in humanitarian aid to the territory. The mediators and the U.S. would provide assurances about talks to end the war, but Israel isn’t committing to that as part of the latest proposal, the official said.

The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the details of the proposed deal with the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It wasn’t clear how many hostages would be freed as part of the agreement, but previous proposals have called for the release of about 10.

Israel has yet to publicly comment on Trump’s announcement. On Monday, Trump is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, days after Ron Dermer, a senior Netanyahu adviser, held discussions with top U.S. officials about Gaza, Iran and other matters.

Trump issues another warning

On Tuesday, Trump wrote on social media that Israel had “agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War.”

“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he said.

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Abdel Hadi Bashir mourns over the bodies of his two daughters, Sabah and Mira who were killed in an Israeli army airstrike of the Gaza Strip, at the Al-Aqsa Hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Trump’s warning may find a skeptical audience with Hamas. Even before the expiration of the war’s longest ceasefire in March, Trump has repeatedly issued dramatic ultimatums to pressure Hamas to agree to longer pauses in the fighting that would see the release of more hostages and a return of more aid for Gaza’s civilians.

Still, Trump views the current moment as a potential turning point in the brutal conflict that has left more than 56,000 dead in the Palestinian territory. The Gaza Health Ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death count, but says that more than half of the dead are women and children.

Since dawn Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed a total of 40 people across the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry said. Hospital officials said four children and seven women were among the dead.

The Israeli military, which blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because it operates from populated areas, was looking into the reports.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.

The war has left the coastal Palestinian territory in ruins, with much of the urban landscape flattened in the fighting. More than 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced, often multiple times. And the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, pushing hundreds of thousands of people toward hunger.

Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

ESPARTO, Calif. (AP) — An explosion at a fireworks warehouse in northern California caused several fires, sending black smoke into the air and forcing evacuations, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Related Articles

Today in History: July 2, Civil Rights Act signed into law

FBI says it plans to move headquarters to different location in Washington

Son of ‘El Chapo’ to plead guilty in US drug trafficking case

Cultlike Zizian group member charged in border agent’s death seeks delay in death penalty decision

Thousands of city workers go on strike in Philadelphia, affecting trash pickup, pools and 911 calls

People were urged to avoid the area of Esparto and Madison for several days following the Tuesday night explosion, which set off multiple fireworks and caused a large fire that led to other spot fires and collapsed the building.

“The fire will take time to cool, and once it does, explosive experts must safely enter the site to assess and secure the area,” the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

The cause of the explosion was under investigation, the office said.

The fire had reached 78 acres as of Tuesday night, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

Esparto is in a rural area about 40 miles northwest of Sacramento.

“We do believe this location is owned by an active pyrotechnic license holder,” Deputy State Fire Marshal Kara Garrett told KXTV. She added: “This type of incident is very rare, as facilities like this are required to not only follow our stringent California pyrotechnic requirements, but also federal explosive storage requirements.”