By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday that he believes President Donald Trump is prepared to “crush” Russia’s economy with a new wave of sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming weeks.

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Graham, who spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it. Republican leaders have said they won’t move without him.

“If we don’t have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,” Graham said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Senate, now away from Washington for the August recess, is scheduled to return in September.

Graham’s call with Trump came less than 24 hours after high-stakes meetings at the White House with Zelenskyy and several European leaders. Trump and the leaders emerged from those talks sounding optimistic, with the expectation being that a Putin and Zelenskyy sit-down will happen soon.

Still, Trump’s comments to Graham, one of his top congressional allies, mark the latest sign that pressure is building — not just on Putin, but on Trump as well.

“Trump believes that if Putin doesn’t do his part, that he’s going to have to crush his economy. Because you’ve got to mean what you say,” Graham told reporters in South Carolina on Tuesday.

As Congress prepares to return to session in early September, the next few weeks could become a defining test of whether lawmakers and international allies are prepared to act on their own if Trump doesn’t follow through.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the lead Democrat pushing the bill with Graham, says there is a “lot of reason for skepticism and doubt” after the meetings with Trump, especially because Putin has not made any direct promises. He said the Russian leader has an incentive to play “rope-a-dope” with Trump.

“The only way to bring Putin to the table is to show strength,” Blumenthal told the AP this week. “What Putin understands is force and pressure.”

Still, Republicans have shown little willingness to override Trump in his second term. They abruptly halted work on the sanctions bill before the August recess after Trump said the legislation may not be needed.

Asked Tuesday in a phone interview whether the sanctions bill should be brought up even without Trump’s support, Graham said, “the best way to do it is with him.”

“There will come a point where if it’s clear that Putin is not going to entertain peace, that President Trump will have to back up what he said he would do,” Graham said. “And the best way to do it is have congressional blessing.”

The legislation would impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries such as China and India, which together account for roughly 70% of Russia’s energy trade. The framework has the support of many European leaders.

Many of those same European leaders left the White House on Monday with a more hopeful tone. Zelenskyy called the meeting with Trump “an important step toward ending this war.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his expectations “were not just met, they were exceeded.”

Still, little concrete progress was visible on the main obstacles to peace. That deadlock likely favors Putin, whose forces continue to make steady, if slow, progress on the ground in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters after talks at the White House that Trump believes a deal with Putin is possible. But he said sanctions remain on the table if the process fails.

Associated Press reporter Meg Kinnard contributed to this report from Florence, South Carolina.

It’s an unenviable position to have to go up against defensive coordinator Brian Flores and his many chess pieces.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) answers questions during a press conference Tuesday, April 29, 2025 in Eagan, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Just ask young quarterback J.J. McCarthy. There have been stretches throughout training camp at TCO Performance Center that the shapeshifting defense has given McCarthy fits as he has gone through his progressions in the pocket.

Though it’s been a net positive for McCarthy and his development, it’s safe to assume he’s ready to start game-planning for somebody other than his teammates on the other end. That will come soon enough as the Vikings will put a bow on training camp this week before turning the page to Week 1 against the Chicago Bears.

Asked for something about McCarthy that has impressed him, Flores pointed to his mobility when the play breaks down.

“It’s hard to prepare for,” Flores said. “We can do everything right, and he gets out of the pocket and makes a throw. That’s something that he certainly possesses and has shown. If he can unlock that, I think that will give people problems.”

Here are more takeaways from Day 17 of training camp:

How is McCarthy?

There wasn’t much to write home about when analyzing McCarthy’s progress as most of the practice was conducted at a walkthrough pace. He went through his progressions mostly at half speed with head coach Kevin O’Connell looking on.

There was a notable throw during 7-on-7 drills as McCarthy found Thayer Thomas with a layered ball in the back of the end zone. That was probably the best rep for McCarthy because he wasn’t asked to do much else.

 Who stood out?

In a situational drill toward the middle of practice, rookie quarterback Max Brosmer got the ball back trailing 24-20, needing to go essentially the length of the field. He proceeded to lead the offense on a methodical drive that ended in a touchdown.

The poise in the pocket stood out as Brosmer made quick decisions that kept the chains moving. After reaching the low red zone, Brosmer finished the job by finding receiver Myles Price with a pinpoint pass at the goal line.

It’s very likely that Brosmer will see a lot of action for the Vikings in the exhibition game against the Tennessee Titans on Friday night at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. That will be his last chance to show he deserves to make the team.

In other news, the Vikings signed running back Xazavian Valladay and offensive guard Zack Bailey, adding depth at both positions ahead of the exhibition game. To make room on the roster, the Vikings waived linebacker Max Tooley.

Quote of the day

“We’re not going to be able to keep all of them, and we understand that. They’ve just got to put their best foot forward day after day after day after day, and they’ll find a place in this league.”

— Flores, on the players jockeying for a spot on the roster as training camp nears an end

Injury report

It was a rather light workload, so that might help explain why a good amount of players were in street clothes on the sidelines. It’s not worth worrying about most absences until a couple of weeks from now when the Vikings start game prep for the Bears.

The continued absence of receiver Jalen Nailor is worth keeping an eye on, however, as his hand injury is something that could linger. If he has to miss an extended period of time, the Vikings might need to address their depth at the position.

What’s next?

It’s hard to believe that the practice on Wednesday afternoon will more or less signal the end of training camp. The next time the Vikings practice after that will be with an eye toward Week 1 against the Bears.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Max Brosmer (12) gives directions to his receiver in the third quarter of a NFL preseason football game against the New England Patriots at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

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By CHINEDU ASADU and MELISSA GOLDIN

President Donald Trump has projected himself as a peacemaker since returning to the White House in January, touting his efforts to end global conflicts.

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In meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders Monday, Trump repeated that he has been instrumental in stopping multiple wars but didn’t specify which.

“I’ve done six wars, I’ve ended six wars, Trump said in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy. He later added: “If you look at the six deals I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires.”

He raised that figure Tuesday, telling “Fox & Friends” that “we ended seven wars.”

But although Trump helped mediate relations among many of these nations, experts say his impact isn’t as clear cut as he claims.

Here’s a closer look at the conflicts.

Israel and Iran

Trump is credited with ending the 12-day war.

Israel launched attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership in June, saying it wanted to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon — which Tehran has denied it was trying to do.

Trump negotiated a ceasefire between Israel and Iran just after directing American warplanes to strike Iran’s Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites. He publicly harangued both countries into maintaining the ceasefire.

FILE – People take pictures of smoke rising from an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. (AP Photo, File)

Evelyn Farkas, executive director of Arizona State University’s McCain Institute, said Trump should get credit for ending the war.

“There’s always a chance it could flare up again if Iran restarts its nuclear weapons program, but nonetheless, they were engaged in a hot war with one another,” she said. “And it didn’t have any real end in sight before President Trump got involved and gave them an ultimatum.”

Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the American Foreign Policy Council who is an expert on Israel-Iran tensions, agreed the U.S. was instrumental in securing the ceasefire. But he characterized it as a “temporary respite” from the ongoing “day-to-day cold war” between the two foes that often involves flare-ups.

Egypt and Ethiopia

This could be described as tensions at best, and peace efforts — which don’t directly involve the U.S. — have stalled.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River has caused friction between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan since the power-generating project was announced more than a decade ago. In July, Ethiopia declared the project complete, with an inauguration set for September.

Egypt and Sudan oppose the dam. Although the vast majority of the water that flows down the Nile originates in Ethiopia, Egyptian agriculture relies on the river almost entirely. Sudan, meanwhile, fears flooding and wants to protect its own power-generating dams.

During his first term, Trump tried to broker a deal between Ethiopia and Egypt but couldn’t get them to agree. He suspended aid to Ethiopia over the dispute. In July, he posted on Truth Social that he helped the “fight over the massive dam (and) there is peace at least for now.” However, the disagreement persists, and negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have stalled.

“It would be a gross overstatement to say that these countries are at war,” said Haas. “I mean, they’re just not.”

India and Pakistan

The April killing of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir pushed India and Pakistan closer to war than they had been in years, but a ceasefire was reached.

Trump has claimed that the U.S. brokered the ceasefire, which he said came about in part because he offered trade concessions. Pakistan thanked Trump, recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize. But India has denied Trump’s claims, saying there was no conversation between the U.S. and India on trade in regards to the ceasefire.

FILE – Indian security officers patrol in armored vehicles in Pahalgam, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, after assailants indiscriminately opened fired at tourists. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

Although India has downplayed the Trump administration’s role in the ceasefire, Haas and Farkas believe the U.S. deserves some credit for helping stop the fighting.

“I think that President Trump played a constructive role from all accounts, but it may not have been decisive. And again, I’m not sure whether you would define that as a full-blown war,” Farkas said.

Serbia and Kosovo

The White House lists the conflict between these countries as one Trump resolved, but there has been no threat of a war between the two neighbors during Trump’s second term, nor any significant contribution from Trump this year to improve their relations.

Kosovo is a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Tensions have persisted ever since, but never to the point of war, mostly because NATO-led peacekeepers have been deployed in Kosovo, which has been recognized by more than 100 countries.

During his first term, Trump negotiated a wide-ranging deal between Serbia and Kosovo, but much of what was agreed on was never carried out.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Trump has played a key role in peace efforts between the African neighbors, but he’s hardly alone and the conflict is far from over.

FILE – People protest in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, against the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels’ advances into eastern Congo’s capital, Goma, on Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, File)

Eastern Congo, rich in minerals, has been battered by fighting with more than 100 armed groups. The most potent is the M23 rebel group backed by neighboring Rwanda, which claims it is protecting its territorial interests and that some of those who participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled to Congo and are working with the Congolese army.

The Trump administration’s efforts paid off in June, when the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers signed a peace deal at the White House. The M23, however, wasn’t directly involved in the U.S.-facilitated negotiations and said it couldn’t abide by the terms of an agreement that didn’t involve it.

The final step to peace was meant to be a separate Qatar-facilitated deal between Congo and M23 that would bring about a permanent ceasefire. But with the fighting still raging, Monday’s deadline for the Qatar-led deal was missed and there have been no public signs of major talks between Congo and M23 on the final terms.

Armenia and Azerbaijan

Trump this month hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House, where they signed a deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict between the two nations. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the signed document a “significant milestone,” and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hailed Trump for performing “a miracle.”

The two countries signed agreements intended to reopen key transportation routes and reaffirm Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s commitment to signing a peace treaty. The treaty’s text was initialed by the countries’ foreign ministers at that meeting, which indicates preliminary approval. But the two countries have yet to sign and ratify the deal.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a bitter conflict over territory since the early 1990s, when ethnic Armenian forces took control of the Karabakh province, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and nearby territories. In 2020, Azerbaijan’s military recaptured broad swaths of territory. Russia brokered a truce and deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region.

In September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lightning blitz to retake remaining portions. The two countries have worked toward normalizing ties and signing a peace treaty ever since.

Cambodia and Thailand

Officials from Thailand and Cambodia credit Trump with pushing the Asian neighbors to agree to a ceasefire in this summer’s brief border conflict.

Cambodia and Thailand have clashed in the past over their shared border. The latest fighting began in July after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Tensions had been growing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a confrontation that created a diplomatic rift and roiled Thai politics.

FILE – This photo released by the Royal Thai Army shows an injured Thai soldier who stepped on a land mine, being airlifted to a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand, July 23, 2025. (The Royal Thai Army via AP, File)

Both countries agreed in late July to an unconditional ceasefire during a meeting in Malaysia. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim pressed for the pact, but there was little headway until Trump intervened. Trump said on social media that he warned the Thai and Cambodian leaders that the U.S. would not move forward with trade agreements if the hostilities continued. Both countries faced economic difficulties and neither had reached tariff deals with the U.S., though most of their Southeast Asian neighbors had.

According to Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst and University of Michigan doctoral candidate, “President Trump’s decision to condition a successful conclusion to these talks on a ceasefire likely played a significant role in ensuring that both sides came to the negotiating table when they did.” ___ Associated Press reporters Jon Gambrell, Grant Peck, Dasha Litvinova, Fay Abuelgasim, Rajesh Roy, and Dusan Stojanovic contributed.

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and ELAINE KURTENBACH

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday confirmed the U.S. government is vying for a 10% stake in Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in an unusual deal that would deepen the Trump administration’s financial ties with major computer chip manufacturers and punctuate a dramatic about-face from the president’s recent push to oust the company’s CEO.

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The ambitions that Lutnick confirmed in a televised interview with CNBC came the day after various news outlets reported on the negotiations between the Trump administration and Intel. The investment would be made by converting federal government grants previously pledged under President Joe Biden’s administration into a bushel of Intel stock that would turn the U.S. government into one of the company’s largest shareholders.

“We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” Lutnick told CNBC as he explained why President Donald Trump is pushing for the deal. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”

Intel declined to comment on the negotiations with the Trump administration.

The notion of the U.S. government holding a huge stake in Intel would have seemed inconceivable back in the company’s heyday when its processors were powering a personal computer boom that began in the mid-1970s. But Intel has been mired in tough times after missing mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut.

Intel has fall even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for two of its once-smaller rivals, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. The Trump administration is hitching a ride on their success by imposing a 15% commission on their sales of their chip sales in China in exchange for their export licenses. Those fees are expected to translate into billions of dollars in additional government revenue.

The U.S. government’s negotiations to become a major Intel shareholder are coming on a heels of a $2 billion investment Japanese technology giant SoftBank Group disclosed late Monday that it plans to make in the Santa Clara, California, company. Softbank is accumulating its 2% stake in Intel at $23 per share — a slight discount from the stock’s price when its investment was announced.

Intel’s shares surged nearly 7% to close at $25.31 on the news of Softbank’s big bet on Intel, coupled with Trump’s designs on the company.

FILE – The logo of Japanese mobile provider SoftBank is seen at its shop in Tokyo on June 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, File)

SoftBank invests in an array of companies that it sees as holding long-term potential. It has been stepping up investments in the United States since Trump returned to the White House. In February, its chairman Masayoshi Son joined Trump, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle in announcing a major investment of up to $500 billion in a project to develop artificial intelligence called Stargate.

“Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry, Son said in a statement. ”This strategic investment reflects our belief that advanced semiconductor manufacturing and supply will further expand in the United States, with Intel playing a critical role.”

Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world since he returned to the White House earlier this year for his second term in office. “We want Intel to be successful in America,” Lutnick said during his CNBC interview.

Boosting domestic production of computer chips also ranked high on the Biden administration’s agenda, which resulted in the 2022 passage of the CHIPS and Science Act.

Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the program, but it hasn’t been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the CHIPS program. The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a “giveaway” that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it’s turned into Intel stock, which he said would be in the form of non-voting shares so the government wouldn’t be able to use the stake to sway how the company is managed.

But Intel’s ongoing struggles also means the U.S. government is taking on a risky investment. The company is in the midst of its latest turnaround attempt under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who was hired in March to shake things up. Tan’s turnaround effort so far has been focused on a cost-cutting spree that is gutting the company’s workforce and further delaying construction on a chip plant in Ohio that has been in the works since 2022.

Intel’s market value is hovering around $110 billion, only a slight uptick from where it was when Tan arrived and leaving it more than 60% below its peak reached about a quarter-century ago during the early phase of the internet boom.

In another strange twist to the new alliance, President Donald Trump had demanded that Tan resign in an August 7 post spurred by concerns about investments that Tan had made in China chipmakers while he was working as a venture capitalist.

FILE – Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan delivers a speech during the Computex 2025 exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

But Trump backed off after the Malyasia-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story.” That truce apparently sparked the negotiations that may culminate in the U.S. government owning a chunk of Intel.

Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok.