Monday morning news: July 13, 2026

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Iran latest » Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is closed. The U.S. says it's open — and is bombing to keep it that way.

Iranian forces set a container ship ablaze over the weekend, leaving a crewman missing. The U.S. answered with three nights of airstrikes, more than 300 targets. Iran fired back at five countries in the region, including Oman, which summoned Iran's ambassador in protest.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz:

WALTZ: You can't throw sea mines in international waterways. You can't just indiscriminately attack civilian shipping if you don't get your way. You can't hold the world's economy hostage. The president's not gonna stand for it.

Peace talks are near collapse — the last round, in Qatar, ended with no progress. But mediators are still trying.

All of this comes amid reports from Israeli intelligence that Iran has been actively plotting to assassinate President Trump. US Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker:

WHITAKER:  The threat is real. This is not some theoretical idea

Trump is suggesting that he’s left standing orders for the U.S. military to strike Iran harder than ever if he’s assassinated. Though, in that scenario, the vice president would ultimately make the call.

Sen. Graham death reaction » Senator Lindsey Graham died of a ruptured aorta — a tear in the body's main artery, brought on by heart disease. That's the medical examiner's preliminary finding.

The Republican senator — one of the most influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill, died Saturday night, after a brief and sudden illness at age 71.

And tributes continue to pour in. President Trump:

TRUMP: He's a tough one to lose. He was great. He was unique in every way.

Graham ran against Trump for the 2016 Republican primary but later became a close ally.

Fellow South Carolina Senator Tim Scott spoke to Graham's character — and what he faced at age 19:

SCOTT: Within 15 months, his mother dies, and then his father has a massive heart attack and he passes as well. Lindsey adopts his 13-year-old sister.

Over three decades in Congress, the former Air Force lawyer became one of Washington's leading foreign policy hawks. Democrats frequently criticized Graham over those hawkish views. But Delaware Sen. Chris Coons said Sunday, that does not mean they didn't respect him.

COONS: This was very hard news to wake up to this morning. No better friend, no tougher adversary. And he and I certainly fought plenty over our differences about politics and policy, but we also traveled the world together.

Graham had just flown home from Ukraine at the time of his death. He had been a staunch supporter of Ukraine amid the Russian invasion. In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called him a true defender of freedom.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Graham:

NETANYAHU: I think America has lost a great patriot. Israel has lost one of the great champions of the American-Israeli alliance. And frankly, I've lost a beloved friend who I've had for many decades. There's just no one like him.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster will name a temporary replacement. A special Republican primary comes August 11, and November's winner gets a full term.

His death leaves GOP leaders scrambling. Graham chaired the Senate Budget Committee. That leaves gavel open — just as Republicans are looking to push through major legislation.

Hot weather » A massive heat dome is baking large swaths of the country, with more than 40 million Americans under heat alerts.

Over the weekend, it drove temperatures past 100 across the Northern Plains and Rockies. Joe Wegman with the National Weather Service says the worst of it is hitting several regions:

WEGMAN: Across the northern plains particularly, but also including portions of the Intermountain West around Utah and also down into the Los Angeles basin.

Billings, Montana, could top 110 — for the first time in nearly a century. Salt Lake City is near its all-time high of 107.

But it isn't staying put. That hot, humid air reaches the rest of the Midwest today and the East Coast tomorrow.

Pub fire in Bangkok kills at least 27 » A massive fire at a pub in Bangkok has killed at least 27 people and injured dozens more. Firefighters brought the blaze under control early Monday, but not before video footage showed people running from the building as billows of black smoke poured into the sky.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Box office » At the weekend box office, Disney’s latest live action remake of an animated hit debuted in the top spot.

CLIP (Moana trailer): This mission has no chance. We gotta go through a whole ocean of bad.

The live-action version of Moana has Duane “The Rock” Johnson reprising his role as Maui, a character he voice-acted a decade ago in the original animated movie.

Moana debuted with an estimated $43 million dollars for the weekend. But that was actually a disappointing number for Disney against the quarter-of-a-billion dollars it cost to make the film — not including marketing.

I'm Kent Covington.

Coming up, how the legendary Route 66 changed the towns along its way.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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