Iranian diplomats say technical talks with the Trump administration aimed at ending the U.S. war on Iran have concluded in Switzerland, with agreements on sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets. The U.S. Treasury Department announced it would waive sanctions for 60 days, allowing Iran to produce and sell crude oil and petrochemical products. President Trump said Monday that Iran would use the funds exclusively to buy food from U.S. farmers, including corn and soybeans. The governor of Iran’s central bank quickly countered Trump’s claim, saying Iran was under no obligation to purchase from the U.S. Separately, Iran’s Foreign Ministry refuted Vice President JD Vance’s claims that Iran had agreed to allow United Nations inspectors at its nuclear sites, saying there were no “plans for IAEA inspections.” Meanwhile, Iran’s Parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Monday that Iran would permanently control the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: “I may have been among the first to say this, right at the beginning of the war, before there was even a ceasefire. I posted on X, and I made it clear: Everyone should know that the administration of the strait will never return to the way that it was before the war.”

The Pentagon is seeking an additional $80 billion to cover the costs of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran. That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports Pentagon leaders have said they could start running out of money for operations this summer unless Congress passes a new wartime spending bill. This comes after the Trump administration proposed a record-shattering $1.5 trillion defense budget.

Israeli soldiers occupying southern Lebanon have opened fire on the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, killing two people and wounding another. It’s the latest of Israel’s many ceasefire violations and comes after Iran previously warned it would “respond” to further attacks by Israeli troops on Lebanon. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces would remain in southern Lebanon “for as long as necessary,” while Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened Beirut could soon face the same fate as Beit Hanoun in Gaza, where Israeli attacks destroyed about 90% of buildings.

Itamar Ben-Gvir: “The equation must be simple and very clear. The state of Israel must be secure. If Israel is not secure, Beirut will look like Beit Hanoun.”

A United Nations commission of inquiry has found Israeli security forces are committing the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip by deliberately targeting Palestinian children with deadly violence. The report by the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found Israeli attacks since October 2023 have resulted in unprecedented death, injury and trauma, with more than 20,000 children killed and another 44,000 wounded. The violence continued even after Israel agreed to a ceasefire last October. The report also found Israeli forces are carrying out war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with a sharp rise in violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinian children. And the report found Israeli security forces have used sexual violence against children, who’ve been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons.

In Michigan, members of the United Auto Workers have voted to prohibit investments in Israeli bonds, becoming the first major U.S. labor union to divest from the state of Israel. UAW member Olga Karounos, who organized the vote, said, “This is going to send a message to — not just the billionaire class — but to politicians and any single person who is not afraid to stand up to genocide, to Netanyahu, to the United States government, and will put the UAW again on the map for standing up for international solidarity.”

The U.S. military has struck another boat in the Caribbean, killing two people. Six people survived, but it remains unclear if they were rescued. U.S. Southern Command claimed, without offering evidence, that the strike targeted alleged drug traffickers. Since September, the U.S. military has carried out deadly strikes on more than 60 boats. Former Human Rights Watch executive director Ken Roth commented on social media, “The summary execution of two more in an alleged drug boat brings the number of murders ordered by Trump to more than 210. There will come a day when he faces prosecution for these crimes.”

The United Nations has warned civilians in Sudan’s North Kordofan region face the “imminent risk of mass atrocities,” after paramilitaries with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces encircled the city of el-Obeid. The RSF fighters, who’ve been locked in a civil war against Sudan’s military rulers since 2023, have escalated drone attacks around the city, blowing up a power substation and a fuel station. Meanwhile, the Sudan Doctors Network reports drone attacks forced several medical centers to close and knocked out water pumping and filtration stations. This is U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

Volker Türk: “The imminent offensive against el-Obeid in Sudan risks commission of serious international crimes and deepens the catastrophic impact on an already beleaguered civilian population. We have seen this playbook before, and we cannot allow the repeat of the preventable atrocities we documented in El Fasher and Zamzam IDP camp in North Darfur last year.”

In health news, the number of confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has topped 1,000. Officials say the Ebola outbreak has killed at least 254 people, but that is believed to be an undercount.

Here in New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order on Monday protecting workers from extreme heat. The order requires every city agency to create heat illness prevention plans and to provide multilingual heat safety guidance for outdoor workers. City officials say the order will protect 1.4 million people, or about a third of the city’s working population, who spend significant time working outdoors. Mayor Mamdani said heat kills more than 500 people in New York City each year. This is New York Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su.

Julie Su: “Extreme heat kills more Americans every year than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined. And we know, because of climate change, it is only getting worse. The number of days above 90 degrees is projected to increase significantly in the years ahead. And despite all of this, extreme heat is still not recognized under federal law as a workplace hazard.”

The Trump administration has proposed a rollback of regulations on companies seeking to extract oil, gas and coal from U.S. public lands. Rules proposed by the Interior Department on Monday would slash oil and gas fees paid by energy companies, weaken environmental reporting obligations and eliminate a requirement that companies detail plans to limit methane emissions when applying for drilling permits.

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to create a national citizenship database to verify voter eligibility. The League of Women Voters and other groups had sued, warning the database could lead to mass purges of qualified voters. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote, “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

In other legal news, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s subpoenas of several Democratic officials in Minnesota, including Governor Tim Walz. District Judge Patrick Schiltz ruled the subpoenas were unconstitutional, calling them an effort to “harass and retaliate.” The Justice Department issued the subpoenas in January after Walz and other officials condemned the Trump administration’s deadly immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

The U.S. Supreme Court has once again postponed consideration of President Trump’s appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case, after Trump was found liable for damages caused by his sexual abuse and defamation of the writer, who says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. The Supreme Court has rescheduled the case 15 times since February, a delay that has benefited Trump, in part because it has deferred a $5 million verdict a jury in New York awarded to Carroll more than three years ago.

Alan Greenspan has died at the age of 100. He served as the chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He was a disciple of libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand; a leading advocate for deregulating banks; and a proponent of so-called trickle-down economics. Greenspan was widely blamed for fueling economic inequality in the United States. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on Monday, “If any single person was responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, it was Greenspan. That crisis — the worst collapse since 1929, which led to the worst recession in decades, in which millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings, and even their homes — resulted from the deregulation of Wall Street that Greenspan advocated.” Greenspan later admitted there was a fundamental flaw in his free market ideology.

Greenspan also pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He later wrote in his memoir, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Click here to see a debate we hosted in 2007 between Alan Greenspan and Naomi Klein.