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Harrowing stories of rescue emerge from Texas floods as crews search for over 160 reported missing

By SEAN MURPHY, NADIA LATHAN and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press

HUNT, Texas (AP) — In the frantic hours after a wall of water engulfed camps and homes in Texas, a police officer who was trapped himself spotted dozens of people stranded on roofs and waded out to bring them to safety, a fellow officer said Wednesday.

Another off-duty officer tied a garden hose around his waist so he could reach two people clinging to a tree above swirling floodwaters, Kerrville officer Jonathan Lamb said, describing another harrowing rescue.

The search is continuing on the grounds of Camp Mystic as more than 160 people are believed to be missing in Texas days after a destructive wall of water killed over 100 people. (AP Video)

“This tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” Lamb told a news conference, crediting first responders and volunteers with saving lives and knocking on doors to evacuate residents during the flash floods on the July Fourth holiday.

More than 160 people still are believed to be missing, and at least 118 have died in the floods that laid waste to the Hill Country region of Texas. The large number of missing people suggests that the full extent of the catastrophe is still unclear five days after the disaster.

The floods are now the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since 1976, when Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flooded, killing 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections.

Crews used backhoes and their bare hands Wednesday to dig through piles of debris that stretched for miles along the Guadalupe River in the search of missing people.

“We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for,” Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday. “Know this also: There very likely could be more added to that list.”

Officials face backlash for lack of preparations and warnings

Public officials in the area have come under repeated criticism amid questions about the timeline of what happened and why widespread warnings were not sounded and more preparations were not made.

“Those questions are going to be answered,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said. “I believe those questions need to be answered, to the families of the loved ones, to the public.”

But he said the priority for now is recovering victims. “We’re not running. We’re not going to hide from anything,” the sheriff said.

The governor called on state lawmakers to approve new flood warning systems and strengthen emergency communications in flood prone areas throughout the state when the Legislature meets in a special session that Abbott had already called to address other issues starting July 21. Abbott also called on lawmakers to provide financial relief for response and recovery efforts from the storms.

“We must ensure better preparation for such events in the future,” Abbott said in a statement.

Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a flood warning system, but concerns about costs and noise led to missed opportunities to put up sirens.

Raymond Howard, a city council member in Ingram, said it was “unfathomable” that county officials did not act.

“This is lives. This is families,” he said. “This is heartbreaking.”

Number of missing has soared

A day earlier, the governor announced that about 160 people have been reported missing in Kerr County, where searchers already have found more than 90 bodies.

Officials have been seeking more information about those who were in the Hill Country, a popular tourist destination, during the holiday weekend but did not register at a camp or a hotel and may have been in the area without many people knowing, Abbott said.

The riverbanks and hills of Kerr County are filled with vacation cabins, youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said five campers and one counselor have still not been found.

Just two days before the flooding, Texas inspectors signed off on the camp’s emergency planning. But five years of inspection reports released to The Associated Press did not provide any details about how campers would be evacuated.

Challenging search for the dead

With almost no hope of finding anyone alive, search crews and volunteers say they are focused on bringing the families of the missing some closure.

Crews fanned out in air boats, helicopters and on horseback. They used excavators and their hands, going through layer by layer, with search dogs sniffing for any sign of buried bodies.

They looked in trees and in the mounds below their feet. They searched inside crumpled pickup trucks and cars, painting them with a large X, much like those marked on homes after a hurricane.

More than 2,000 volunteers have offered to lend a hand in Kerr County alone, the sheriff said.

How long the search will continue was impossible to predict given the number of people unaccounted for and the miles to cover.

Shannon Ament wore knee-high rubber boots and black gloves as she rummaged through debris in front of her rental property in Kerr County. A high school soccer coach is one of the many people she knows who are still missing.

“We need support. I’m not going to say thoughts and prayers because I’m sick of that,” she said. “We don’t need to be blamed for who voted for who. This was a freak of nature — a freak event.”

Trump plans to survey damage Friday

President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. He plans to visit the state Friday.

Polls taken before the floods show Americans largely believe the federal government should play a major role in preparing for and responding to natural disasters.

Catastrophic flooding is a growing worry. On Tuesday, a deluge in New Mexico triggered flash floods that killed three people.

Although it’s difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make these type of storms more likely.

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Lathan reported from Ingram, and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

North Carolina governor vetoes another set of bills, including one on guns in private schools

By MAKIYA SEMINERA Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Josh Stein cleared his desk Wednesday of the deluge of bills passed to him from the North Carolina General Assembly last month, three of which he vetoed.

Stein topped off his veto total at 14 for this year’s legislative session. One of the vetoes prolongs the extensive battle between the governor’s office and GOP-controlled legislature over gun laws — an issue Republican lawmakers prioritized when they came to Raleigh.

Now that all of Stein’s vetoes have been returned to the Legislative Building, possible veto override attempts could occur starting later this month. House Speaker Destin Hall reaffirmed that possibility in a post on the social platform X.

“We’re keeping score. Overrides coming soon,” Hall said.

With Republicans one House seat short of a veto-proof supermajority, GOP leaders may have to pick and choose which measures to take action on. A few bills with some Democratic support may be able to skirt by.

The first vetoed bill would allow certain people to carry firearms onto private school property with permission from the school’s board of trustees or administrative director. The person — either an employee or a volunteer — would be required to have a concealed handgun permit and complete a training class. Republican proponents of the bill said it would keep private schools safe in rural areas where police response time is longer.

Stein argued in his veto statement that school employees and volunteers “cannot substitute” law enforcement officers, who receive hundreds of hours of safety education, when crises occur. The governor did voice support for another provision in the bill that would heighten penalties for threatening or assaulting an elected official. He urged the legislature to “send me a clean bill with those protections so I can sign it.”

“Just as we should not allow guns in the General Assembly, we should keep them out of our schools unless they are in the possession of law enforcement,” Stein said in the statement.

Some Democrats in the House and Senate voted for the bill originally, meaning a veto override is on the table.

The fight over guns was the focus of a previous bill Stein vetoed a few weeks ago that would allow adults to carry concealed weapons without a permit. That bill faces an uphill battle to becoming law after a handful of Republicans voted against the measure, making the chances of a veto override fairly slim.

GOP state legislators have continued to carve out further gun access over the past few years. In 2023, Republican lawmakers overrode former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto and put into law the elimination of the pistol purchase permit system that mandated character evaluations and criminal history checks for applicants.

The other two bills Stein vetoed Wednesday also received some Democratic votes and thus could be overridden if such support holds.

One of the bills would create an expedited removal process for homeowners and landlords to remove people unauthorized to live on their property. Stein said he was unhappy with a last-minute addition that would prevent local governments from enforcing their own prohibitions on pet shop animal sales and additional licensing beyond statewide rules. The other bill would bar public agencies from collecting or releasing certain personal information about donors to 501(c) nonprofits.

The governor signed nine bills into law Wednesday. Two were omnibus criminal justice and public safety measures, raising penalties on many crimes or creating new criminal counts. Another was designed to help active-duty military and veterans with reduced government fees and improved access to higher education.

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Associated Press writer Gary D. Robertson contributed to this report.

Gains for tech stocks push Nasdaq to another record

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer

A rally in big tech stocks led the broader market to a higher close Wednesday, lifting the Nasdaq to an all-time high and helping Wall Street claw back most of its losses from earlier in the week.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% for its first gain this week. The benchmark index remains near the record it set last week after a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with technology stocks, closed 0.9% higher. The gain was good enough to nudge the index past the record high it set last Thursday.

Nvidia rose 1.8% and became the first public company to exceed $4 trillion in value after its share price briefly topped $164 each in the early going. Shares in the AI boom poster child were going for around $14 per share at the start of 2023.

The tech rally came as Wall Street continued to weigh the latest developments in President Donald Trump’s renewed push this week to use threats of higher tariffs on goods imported into the U.S. in hopes of securing new trade agreements with countries around the globe.

Wednesday was initially set as a deadline by Trump for countries to make deals with the U.S. or face heavy increases in tariffs. But with just two trade deals announced since April, one with the United Kingdom and one with Vietnam, the window for negotiations has been extended to Aug. 1.

This latest phase in the White House’s trade war heightens the threat of potentially more severe tariffs that’s been hanging over the global economy. Higher taxes on imported goods could hinder economic growth, if not increase recession risks.

On Tuesday, Trump said he would be announcing tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs at a “very, very high rate, like 200%.” He also said he would sign an executive order placing a 50% tariff on copper imports, matching the rates charged on steel and aluminum.

Copper prices eased Wednesday after spiking a day earlier. Shares in mining company Freeport-McMoRan fell 1.5%.

Financial markets swooned from day-to-day for weeks after the White House rolled out its proposed tariff hikes in the spring. With the new batch of U.S. taxes on imports not set to kick in until next month, that gives Wall Street a breather just as the next corporate earnings season is set to begin.

“I think most people are tired of tariff news and they’re starting to realize it just doesn’t matter much,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “We’re pretty bullish about earnings. I think the rest of the market is too.”

Wall Street analysts predict that companies in the S&P 500 will deliver a combined 5% annual growth in second-quarter earnings, according to FactSet. That would mark the lowest growth rate for the index since the fourth quarter of 2023.

Delta Air Lines kicks off earnings season on Thursday, with most analysts expecting the airline’s second-quarter profit to decline from a year ago. Delta and other major U.S. carriers have trimmed their flight schedules and pulled their forecasts this year as consumers pull back on travel and other nonessential spending due to uncertainty about how Trump’s tariffs will affect their budgets.

Gains in technology and communication services stocks outweighed declines in energy and other sectors Wednesday.

Microsoft rose 1.4%, Meta gained 1.7% and Google parent Alphabet added 1.3%.

Amazon rose 1.4% a day after the online retail giant kicked off Prime Day, extending it for the first time to four days.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 37.74 to 6,263.26. The Dow added 217.54 to 44,458.30, and the Nasdaq gained 192.87 to close at 20,611.34.

In bond market trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury slid to 4.34% from 4.40% late Tuesday.

In overseas markets, stock indexes closed broadly higher in Europe after a mixed finish in Asia.

Outside of trade talks, some corporate news surfaced Wednesday after a typically quiet early summer stretch.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck is buying Verona Pharma, a U.K. company that focuses on respiratory diseases, in an approximately $10 billion deal. If approved by Verona shareholders and U.K. officials, Merck will get access to Verona’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medication Ohtuvayre. Verona shares jumped 20.6% on the news, while Merck shares rose 2.9%.

Biden’s former doctor refuses to answer questions in House Republican probe

By MATT BROWN and MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s former White House physician refused on Wednesday to answer questions as part of the House Republican investigation into Biden’s health in office.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor invoked doctor-patient privilege and his rights under the Fifth Amendment during a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee, his attorney and lawmakers said.

Republicans on the Oversight Committee subpoenaed O’Connor last month as part of a their sweeping investigation into Biden’s health and his mental fitness as president. They claim some policies carried out during Biden’s term through the use of the White House autopen may be illegitimate if it’s proven the Democrat was mentally incapacitated for some of his term.

Biden has strongly denied that he was not in a right state of mind at any point while in office, calling the claims “ridiculous and false.”

David Schertler, one of O’Connor’s lawyers, said the doctor had “no choice” but to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in testimony before the committee. Schertler cited both O’Connor’s responsibilities to protect patient privacy as a doctor and the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the Oversight chair, said O’Connor’s refusal to testify made it “clear there was a conspiracy.”

“The American people demand transparency, but Dr. O’Connor would rather conceal the truth,” Comer said in a statement.

Witnesses routinely invoke their Fifth Amendment rights in testimony to Congress. Allies of President Donald Trump, for example, invoked their rights when refusing to testify to the committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.

Comer has has sought testimony from nearly a dozen former Biden aides as he conducts his investigation, including former White House chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients; former senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, former counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, former deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and a former assistant to the president, Ashley Williams.

He has also issued a subpoena for Anthony Bernal, the former chief of staff to former first lady Jill Biden.

Trump’s White House has waived executive privilege, a right that protects many communications between the president and staff from Congress and the courts, for almost all of those senior staffers. That clears the way for those staffers to discuss their conversations with Biden while he was president.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, dismissed the Republican investigation as a waste of time.

“Oversight Republicans could be working to lower costs for American families and conducting oversight of President Trump’s corruption, but instead are obsessed with the past,” he said.

Comer has said his committee will release a report of all its findings after the probe is complete.

More than 160 people are still missing after deadly Texas floods, governor says

By NADIA LATHAN and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press

HUNT, Texas (AP) — More than 160 people are still believed to be missing in Texas days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, the state’s governor said Tuesday.

The huge jump in the number unaccounted for — roughly three times higher than previously said — came after authorities set up a hotline for families to call.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says more than 160 people are believed to be still missing days after the flash floods that killed more than 100 people across central Texas. (AP Video)

Those reported missing are in Kerr County, where most of the victims have been recovered so far, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Many were likely visiting or staying in the state’s Hill Country during the holiday but did not register at a camp or hotel, he said during a news conference.

The county’s lowlands along the Guadalupe River are filled with youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.

Search-and-rescue teams are using heavy equipment to untangle and peel away layers of trees, unearth large rocks in riverbanks and move massive piles of debris that stretch for miles in the search for the missing people. Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history.

The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend, Colorado’s centennial celebration.

Public officials in charge of locating the victims are facing intensifying questions about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.

The Republican governor, who took a helicopter tour of the disaster zone, dismissed a question about who was to blame for the deaths, saying, “That’s the word choice of losers.”

“Every football team makes mistakes,” he said. “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say, ’Don’t worry about it, man, we got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again and we’re going to win this game.’ The way winners talk is not to point fingers.”

Abbott promised that the search for victims will not stop until everyone is found. He also said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. Trump plans to visit the state Friday.

Scenes of devastation at Camp Mystic

Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers.

Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp’s 75-year-old director.

The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. The wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the river’s edge. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground. Time-lapse videos showed how floodwaters covered roads in a matter of minutes.

Although it’s difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.

Where were the warnings?

Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were spending the July Fourth weekend in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley.”

Leaders in Kerr county, where searchers have found about 90 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the hours before the flash floods.

“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens, said during a sometimes tense news conference.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said in the hours after the devastation that the county does not have a warning system.

Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were killed.

Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a warning system. Kerr County sought a nearly $1 million grant eight years ago for such a system, but the request was turned down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents balked at footing the bill themselves, Kelly said.

Recovery and cleanup goes on

Four days have passed since anyone was found alive in the aftermath of the floods in Kerr County, officials said Tuesday.

The bodies of 30 children were among those that have been recovered in the county, which is home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, the sheriff said.

The devastation spread across several hundred miles in central Texas all the way to just outside the capital of Austin.

Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the muffled blare of a megaphone urging residents to evacuate Riverside RV Park in the Hill Country town of Ingram.

All his belongings — a mattress, sports cards, his pet parakeet’s bird cage — now sit caked in mud in front of his home.

“What’s going on right now, it hurts,” the 17-year-old said. “I literally cried so hard.”

Along the banks of the Guadalupe, 91-year-old Charles Hanson, a resident at a senior living center, was sweeping up wood and piling pieces of concrete and stone, remnants from a playground structure.

He wanted to help clean up on behalf of his neighbors who can’t get out. “We’ll make do with the best we got,” he said.

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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Joshua A. Bickel in Kerrville, Texas; Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

Latest ‘Tiger King’ twist finds ‘Doc’ Antle sentenced to 1 year in prison for animal trafficking

By JEFFREY COLLINS Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — “Tiger King” star Bhagavan “Doc” Antle is going to prison — but not for as long as prosecutors wanted — after admitting he broke federal law buying endangered animals to keep at his zoo in South Carolina.

Antle, 65, was sentenced to one year and one day behind bars and fined $55,000 on Tuesday, nearly two years after he pleaded guilty to trafficking in exotic animals and money laundering. He entered his plea in November 2023.

It was likely the end to the legal dramas that surrounded “Tiger King,” the Netflix true crime documentary that captivated a country shut down by COVID-19.

The star, Joe Exotic, is serving a 21-year federal prison sentence for trying to hire two different men to kill the other star, Carole Baskin. Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was a collector and private zookeeper from Oklahoma and Baskin, runs Big Cat Rescue in Florida.

Antle appeared in the first season with Exotic and Baskin and was the star of the show’s third season.

Prosecutors say Antle bought animals on the black market

Antle’s crimes were unrelated. He laundered money used in a human smuggling scheme because he needed large amounts of cash quickly to buy animals like chimpanzees, lions, tigers, cheetahs and other creatures, Prosecutor Patrick Duggan said. These animals are illegal to sell because they are endangered, and their high prices could encourage poachers to steal them from the wild, Duggan explained.

“He was knowingly and illegally trading them as part of a black market that drives another black market of poaching and smuggling,” Duggan said in court Tuesday.

Antle’s lawyers requested a sentence of just probation or home confinement, saying their client needed to care for the 150 exotic animals that consume 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of meat a day at his Myrtle Beach Safari. They said many of the animals only respond to Antle.

Friends and family ask for mercy for Antle

About 25 friends and family packed a federal courtroom in Charleston. Several told Judge Joseph Dawson III that Antle was generous and caring. They said he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poaching and preserve wild habitats for tigers, lions and chimpanzees.

The judge was swayed. Federal guidelines called for about two years in prison, to which prosecutors agreed. But Dawson said, although Antle broke federal law, all the evidence pointed to him caring for animals.

Antle apologized at the end of his sentencing hearing for causing problems for his life’s work.

“I made a mistake, I did stupid things,” Antle said, adding, “I hope I’ll be able to pull it back together for everybody.”

Antle needed animals so Myrtle Beach Safari could offer experiences

Antle’s Myrtle Beach Safari was known for charging hundreds or thousands of dollars to let people pet and hold baby animals like lions, tigers and monkeys that were so young they were still being bottle-fed. Customers would pay $200 for five minutes and photos with a baby chimp or $7,000 for a sleepover. Antle would sometimes ride into tours on an elephant.

The zoo remains open by reservation only.

Prosecutors said Antle sold or bought cheetahs, lions, tigers and a chimpanzee without the proper paperwork for a decade. They said he also laundered more than $500,000 so he could quickly get cash to buy more animals.

Antle knows federal law well and was able to avoid prosecution for years, prosecutors said. He would accept a large “donation” for an animal to his conservation foundation. He would claim to keep the animal in the same state he bought it, but then move it to his Myrtle Beach zoo, prosecutors said.

FBI tapped phone calls led to several prosecutions

The FBI was listening to Antle’s phone calls with an informant as he explained a baby chimpanzee could easily cost $200,000. Private zookeepers can charge hundreds of dollars for photos with docile young primates or other animals, but the profit window is only open for a few years before the growing animals can no longer be safely handled.

“I had to get a monkey, but the people won’t take a check. They only take cash. So what do you do?” Antle said according to a transcript of the phone call in court papers.

Antle will have to give up three chimpanzees he bought as part of his plea deal.

Two of Antle’s employees have already been sentenced for their roles in his schemes.

Meredith Bybee was given a year of probation for selling a chimpanzee while Andrew “Omar” Sawyer, who prosecutors said helped Antle launder money, was given two years of probation.

Jason Clay, a Texas private zoo owner, pleaded guilty to illegally selling a primate and was sentenced to four months in prison, while charges were dropped against California ranch owner Charles Sammut.

Wall Street is mixed amid Trump’s new tariff deadlines

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer

A choppy day in the markets left major U.S. stock indexes little changed Tuesday as the Trump administration pressed its campaign to win more favorable trade deals with nations around the globe by leaning into tariffs on goods coming into the U.S.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% a day after posting its biggest loss since mid-June. The benchmark index remains near its all-time high set last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave back 0.4%. The Nasdaq composite eked out a gain of less than 0.1%, staying near its own record high.

The sluggish trading came as the market was coming off a broad sell-off following the Trump administration’s decision to impose new import tariffs set to go into effect next month on more than a dozen nations.

Still, the modest pullback in the markets is a sign that Wall Street may be betting that the U.S. and its trading partners may eventually negotiate deals that will reduce or eliminate the need for punishing tariffs, said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird.

“I think today you’re basically seeing a market that doesn’t quite believe the worst of this is going to come to bear and is just kind of waiting for any sort of clarity because we seem back in that in that kind of phase where things change every couple of hours,” Mayfield said.

On Monday, President Donald Trump set a 25% tax on goods imported from Japan and South Korea and new tariff rates on a dozen other nations scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 1.

Trump provided notice by posting letters on Truth Social that were addressed to the leaders of the various countries. The letters warned them to not retaliate by increasing their own import taxes, or else the Trump administration would further increase tariffs.

Just before hefty U.S. tariffs on goods imported from nearly every country around the globe were to take effect in April, Trump postponed the levies for 90 days in hopes that foreign governments would be more willing to strike new trade deals. That 90-day negotiating period was set to expire before Wednesday.

With the tariffs set to kick in now on Aug. 1, the latest move by the White House amounts to essentially a four-week extension of its previous 90-day pause, wrote Tobin Marcus, an analyst at Wolfe Research.

“At a very basic level, nothing actually happened based on Trump sending these letters, so there’s no reason to panic over headlines,” he wrote. “But we think these moves do contain some signal about where the trade war is heading, and that signal is mostly hawkish.”

During a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump said he would be announcing tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs at a “very, very high rate, like 200%.” He also said he would sign an executive order placing a 50% tariff on copper imports, matching the rates charged on steel and aluminum.

Shares in mining company Freeport-McMoRan rose 2.5% following Trump’s remarks. The price of copper for September delivery jumped 13.1% to $5.69 per pound.

This latest phase in the trade war heightens the threat of potentially more severe tariffs that’s been hanging over the global economy. Higher taxes on imported goods could hinder economic growth, if not increase recession risks.

Gains in technology, energy and health care stocks helped outweigh a pullback in banks and other sectors.

Intel jumped 7.2%, Exxon Mobil rose 2.8% and AbbVie rose 1.1%. JPMorgan and Bank of America each fell 3.1%.

Amazon shares fell 1.8% as the online retail giant kicked off Prime Day, which, beginning this year, lasts four days. Amazon launched the membership sales event in 2015 and expanded it to two days in 2019.

Elsewhere in the market, First Solar slid 6.5% after Trump issued an executive order ending subsidies for foreign-controlled energy companies.

Hershey Co. lost 3.2% after the chocolate maker announced that Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner will succeed current CEO Michele Buck, who is retiring.

Shares in WeightWatchers parent WW International gave up an early gain and dropped 1.1% after the company announced that it has completed its reorganization and relisting on Nasdaq. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May to eliminate $1.15 billion in debt and focus on its transition into a telehealth services provider.

Bond yields mostly rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.40% from 4.39% late Monday.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 4.46 points to 6,225.52. The Dow lost 165.60 points to 44,240.76, and the Nasdaq added 5.95 points to 20,418.46.

The market’s downbeat start to the week follows a strong run for stocks, which pushed further into record heights last week after a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report.

In stock markets overseas, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia. In two of the bigger moves, South Korea’s Kospi surged 1.8%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 1.1%.

The National Federation of Independent Business reported Tuesday that its small business optimism index fell slightly last month, in line with analysts’ expectations. The index tracks how small firms view the U.S. economy and their business prospects.

On Wednesday the Federal Reserve will release minutes from its policymaking committee’s meeting last month. The Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, has said the central bank wants to wait and see how Trump’s tariffs affect the economy and inflation before making its next move on interest rates.

3 potential storm deaths in North Carolina after Chantal, officials say

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — There were three potential storm-related deaths in North Carolina amid flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal, a state official said Tuesday.

The state’s Department of Health and Human Services was working on confirmation of the deaths in Chatham, Orange and Alamance counties, North Carolina Emergency Management spokesperson Justin Graney said in an email.

In Chatham County, an 83-year-old Pittsboro woman was killed when her car was swept off a rural road by floodwaters Sunday night, according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. On Monday, crews found the body of a Person County woman who went missing while on her way to work in Orange County on Sunday night, according to a social media post by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. In Alamance County, a missing man was found dead Sunday night inside a submerged vehicle found off a road in Mebane, sheriff’s office spokesperson Byron Tucker told WTVD-TV.

The storm destroyed homes and impaired businesses and lives were lost, Gov. Josh Stein said during a visit to Mebane in Alamance County on Tuesday. Officials were still assessing the scale of the damage and working on a final number of deaths, he said.

“Storms like this show us what is best about North Carolina,” Stein said. He praised emergency workers for their efforts knocking on doors to get people out of their homes or diverting traffic to keep people out of harm’s way.

Before his visit to Mebane, Stein told reporters in Raleigh on Tuesday morning that there will be enough money to address damage from both and Chantal and Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina last year, killing more than 100 people.

Crews were working Tuesday to restore power, utilities and road access, officials said. The state’s Department of Transportation reopened several major roads, including Interstate 40/85 in Alamance County on Monday, but 65 roads remained closed because of the storm, officials said.

“This historic weather event caused flooding like we haven’t seen in several decades in the central part of the state,” Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins said in a statement, noting that crews were working to assess and reopen roads as soon as floodwaters recede and it is safe to do so.

Tropical Storm Chantal was downgraded to a tropical depression Sunday after making landfall in South Carolina. While the winds dropped, a 15- to 30-mile-wide swath of heavy rain followed the storm’s core across North Carolina and areas within that swath saw impressive rain amounts, the weather service’s Eastern Region headquarters said in a social media post.

Rainfall totals exceeded 8 inches (20.32 centimeters) in some spots in central North Carolina and some isolated areas saw totals of nearly 1 foot (30.48 centimeters), such as in Moncure and Pittsboro in Chatham County, where 11.92 inches (30.28 centimeters) and 11.53 inches (29.29 centimeters) of rain fell respectively.

Intense rainstorms are becoming more frequent in most of the U.S. — though experts say where they occur and whether they cause catastrophic flooding is largely a matter of chance.

The National Weather Service’s office in Raleigh confirmed that four tornadoes, all EF-1s with peak winds ranging from 95 to 105 mph (153 to 169 km/h), touched down Sunday in Orange, Alamance, Chatham and Lee counties. No injuries or deaths were reported.

Family of 4, including 2 children, killed in North Carolina plane crash

SANFORD, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina family of four, including two school-age children, died when their small plane crashed as they flew back from Florida.

The National Transportation Safety Board said an agency investigator was expected Tuesday at the site of the wreckage of Monday’s crash, located in a field near some trees northeast of Sanford, North Carolina.

The state Highway Patrol identified those killed as Travis and Candace Buchanan, who were both 35; Aubrey Buchanan, 10; and Walker Buchanan, 9. Three of the four died at the scene, while the fourth was pronounced dead at a hospital, the patrol said in a news release.

There were no survivors in the crash involving the Cirrus SR22T airplane, which an NTSB official said happened shortly after 1:30 p.m. under currently unknown circumstances. The aircraft ultimately will be recovered and taken to a facility for further evaluation, the agency said.

The Raleigh Executive Jetport, located a few miles north of the crash site, said in a social media post that the aircraft was based at the small airport.

Federal Aviation Administration records list Travis Buchanan of Sanford as the plane’s owner. The plane departed Merritt Island, Florida, about 11 a.m. Monday and was last seen about 1:30 p.m. near Sanford, according to according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. Sanford is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh.

WRAL-TV reported that the family owned Buchanan Farms in Sanford. Abraham Garcia said he had worked for Travis Buchanan at the farms for more than eight years and “he helped me all the time.” The Buchanan family was heading back from the beach, he said.

Grace Christian School in Sanford said on its Facebook page that Travis and Candace Buchanan were the parents of Aubrey, a fifth-grader this fall at the school, and Walker, an upcoming fourth-grader.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the passing of one of our Crusader Families,” the post said, referencing the school’s nickname. “During this incredibly difficult time, we stand together in support of their family and one another.”

Swain County sheriff steps down after sexual misconduct charges

BRYSON CITY, N.C. (AP) — The longtime sheriff of a western North Carolina county whom some women accused of sexual misconduct has quit before he could be permanently removed.

Curtis Cochran, who was first elected Swain County sheriff in 2006, retired from the post effective July 1, according to a statement from the county Board of Commissioners. The chief deputy is performing the sheriff’s duties while the commissioners decide who will serve out the remainder of Cochran’s four-year term through late 2026, the statement said.

Cochran, 72, was charged in state courts with felonious restraint and misdemeanor sexual battery, soliciting prostitution and assault on a female, according to June 27 arrest warrants. The same day, Ashley Hornsby Welch, the district attorney for Swain and six other far western counties, filed a petition seeking to remove Cochran from office for “willful misconduct and maladministration in office.”

A Superior Court judge immediately suspended Cochran from office pending a final court ruling. But the removal petition becomes moot with Cochran’s retirement. A petition-related hearing set for Monday in adjoining Graham County was canceled, online court data said.

Welch’s removal petition included signed affidavits by two women who allege Cochran made separate unwanted sexual advances on them while he drove on land held by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The Eastern Band’s reservation, known as Qualla Boundary, is in portions of Swain County.

The county of 14,000 people is about 300 miles (483 kilometers) west of Raleigh and includes much of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that straddles the Tennessee border.

Cochran was released on bond on the state criminal charges and faces an Aug. 5 court hearing. He is also charged under Eastern Band tribal law with two counts of oppression in office and one count of abusive sexual contact, Cherokee Indian Police Department Chief Carla Neadeau said in a news release.

Cochran’s attorney didn’t respond Monday or Tuesday to a phone message and emails seeking comment and additional details.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

The petition alleges that on June 22 one woman — an Eastern Band member — flagged down what she believed to be a law enforcement vehicle. She was upset and crying because she and her boyfriend had been fighting verbally, and she accepted an invitation into the SUV from the driver — whom authorities identified as Cochran — because she believed it would diffuse the situation, the petition says.

The petition alleges that when Cochran started driving he began touching the woman despite her objections and asked her to perform a sexual act, but she refused. He later pulled the SUV off the road, got out and positioned himself so the woman couldn’t get out of vehicle and asked again, according to the petition. Cochran told the woman if “there was a time that I got in trouble, all I would have to do is say his name and he would help me,” the woman’s affidavit read. She again declined, ultimately was dropped off at her house and contacted tribal police.

The affidavit signed by the other woman said that on June 23 — soon after being released from the tribal jail — she accepted a ride from what looked like a government vehicle that she said turned out to be driven by Cochran. She said Cochran starting touching her — doing so even as she pulled away — and she ultimately got out of the vehicle.

The FBI and State Bureau of Investigation also participated in the criminal investigation, which included video footage, according to the petition.

Cochran, a Republican, had no law enforcement experience before his first sheriff’s election victory, having previously been Swain County’s maintenance director.