U.S.-Iran Ceasefire Collapses as American Death Toll Rises

0:00This podcast is brought to you by ReliaQuest. Cyber criminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. ReliaQuest fortifies your business with agentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminates cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliaQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliaQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T dot com. The U.S.-Iran ceasefire effectively collapses after escalating fighting takes a deadly turn.

0:39And they continue to send signals that they want to talk, that they want to negotiate, but their behavior is what we're responding to. Plus, the FDA continues probing the source of widespread foodborne illness after walking back weekend findings. And we'll look at why young conservatives are suddenly Nixon-maxing. It's Monday, July 20th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

1:12Three American troops have now died in connection with Iranian attacks over the weekend, making a recent flare-up in fighting one of the deadliest for U.S. service members since the start of the war in February. Two American troops were killed in an Iranian attack on an airbase in Jordan, and the U.S. is still working to identify the remains of what is believed to be a third American service member who went missing after the strike. Meanwhile, another U.S. troop died Saturday in Iraq during a controlled detonation of an Iranian attack drone. Journal National Security correspondent Shelby Holliday says the deaths are likely to test the restraint of President Trump, who previously said he'd consider going back to war if Iran killed U.S.

1:54soldiers. If these numbers check out, that is four U.S. service members killed in one weekend as a result of the Iran war. And it's happening as the U.S. and Iran escalate attacks against each other. They're fighting for control over the Strait of Hormuz, but they are also broadening their attacks. The U.S. is hitting bridges and supply routes. Iran is trying to target infrastructure. They're targeting civilians. They're also trying to kill American service members. And it also shows how this conflict is spiraling after several weeks of negotiations and a ceasefire and the two sides trying to work something out.

2:31Things have fallen apart and the two sides are back to striking increasingly sensitive targets and also just broadening their attacks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the troop deaths as stiffening U.S. resolve and said that more American warplanes were being sent to the Middle East. The intensification of fighting is driving up U.S. gasoline prices, which breached the$4-a-gallon threshold this morning, according to AAA. Higher fuel costs are also weighing on airlines, with Ryanair shares slipping 7 % and dragging down its European counterparts. The budget airline said its profit slipped because customers worried about high airfares either delayed or refrained from booking trips.

3:16With global stockpiles of interceptors running low, Lockheed Martin is unveiling a new and cheaper version of its Patriot missile system. The company says the new design will set back buyers half as much as its best-selling Patriot variants, which cost more than$4 million a round. The new design is set to be unveiled today at Farnborough International Air Show, where I'll be reporting from later in the week. The FDA is walking back its finding that a nationwide outbreak of cyclosporiasis that's left thousands ill could be linked to lettuce produced by food giant Taylor Farms. The agency now says that a weekend test of lettuce samples, which led Taylor Farms to initiate recalls of iceberg lettuce grown and processed in Mexico, was a false positive and that it's yet to identify the presence of cyclospora parasite in produce samples from the company.

4:09While future lab tests could still identify the parasite's presence on other samples of Taylor Farms-supplied lettuce, the finding is a boost as the company navigates the fallout from the outbreak. Nevertheless, some Americans are shifting their shopping habits, with farmers telling North Carolina's WCNC and Tennessee's News Channel 5 that they'd seen an uptick in demand for locally grown produce. I filled a lot of questions on where the stuff comes from and how we process it, which we just pick it and bring it direct here. Normally, we'll sell out. We'll have a little bit left over by 12 o 'clock.

4:46We were pretty much sold out by 10.

4:51Well, after more than 100 games, around 300 goals, and a dozen or so red cards, the World Cup wrapped up in New Jersey last night, with Spain's 1-0 win over defending champions Argentina. After soccer fans from around the world set up camp and opened their wallets across U.S. cities over the last month, some American business owners are claiming economic victory. And after the final, President Trump called the tournament an incredible success. We're really happy that it did so well. And all over the world, people have come and they've loved our country. You know, it's shown off our country in a different light.

5:27And it was a great thing. It was a great event. Just a few months ago, some hospitality industry experts had feared the World Cup was gearing up to be a bust for the U.S. economy, even with FIFA estimating a$17 billion boost to GDP. Bank of America estimates that credit and debit card spending by Americans rose 6.3 % in June from a year earlier. the strongest growth rate in more than four years, likely lifted by the World Cup. The bank's data excludes spending from foreign travelers, though, so the total economic impact of World Cup-related tourism isn't yet clear. Bank of America is a sponsor of the World Cup.

6:05And the Odyssey has hit it big at the box office, with Christopher Nolan's latest action blockbuster bringing in an estimated$264 million worldwide on its opening weekend. That's the third biggest opening for any film this year, behind the animated sequels Toy Story 5 and the Super Mario Galaxy movie. Nolan has turned out to be a bankable success, with Comcast's Universal Pictures signing off on a roughly$250 million budget for the R-rated adaptation of the ancient Greek epic. According to data from RenTrack provided by Universal, 53 % of moviegoers said that the director was their number one reason for attending.

6:46Coming up, the UK sees its fifth prime minister in four years as Keir Starmer steps aside for Andy Burnham. We've got that story and more after the break.

7:03The UK is set to get a new prime minister today, Andy Burnham. The Labour Party politician is promising policies geared toward a new kind of economy, which could include a push for greater public control of the water and energy sectors, taxing major warehouses like those run by Amazon while cutting rates for pubs and music venues, and issuing new oil and gas drilling licenses in the North Sea, with more details expected this week. But one policy Burnham has already set out are plans for the biggest public housing construction program in 70 years. Our population is bigger and we're building fewer homes each year.

7:42So our annual target is 88 ,000 homes. And last year and the year before, we built just under 5 ,000. That's journal reporter Natasha Dangor, who's been looking at why home construction in the UK, and particularly in London, is at a standstill. Red tape gets in the way. We operate on a case-by-case system, unlike other cities that operate on a zoning system, which means that it's up to the local council, really, whether to accept or deny a building proposal. We've now got to the point where developers are so put off that they're not even submitting proposals because it's not worth their while.

8:18The amount of money that they'll lose by submitting a proposal after they've gone through thousands of pages of documentation, building insurance, they're paying for architects and planners. It's not worth, A, the wait until they get permission, but B, they might not even get permission at all. So they've just wasted all that money. The failure to build in London is having knock-on effects, with economic growth and productivity taking a hit, and construction employment in the capital weakening by 21 % since 2017. For now, investors are giving the new PM the benefit of the doubt, but with just three years to go until the next election, and UK borrowing costs near a record high, Burnham will need to cut red tape quickly, a challenge in a policy space where achieving results takes time.

9:06Auckland, New Zealand, for example, made its planning rules more flexible about 10 years ago. They managed to double their rate of construction, which obviously brought down rents and home prices in the following decade. Same with Vancouver. They revamped their regulation system and they exceeded their annual target by more than 50%. Austin, Texas, another good example of a city that's loosened its housing regulation to boost growth. So it does work elsewhere. I mean, even Vienna, which is a much smaller city than London, built about triple the number of homes last year. So we can see that it's working in other cities, but unfortunately, London has this strict regulation that constrains it.

9:47Solving the housing crisis will also be important for Burnham's political survival, as populist parties like Reform UK blame immigration for increasing housing demand and the Green Party pitches strict rent controls.

10:04And finally, the Internet's new phrase, maxing, as in obsessively optimizing something to its absolute limit, see looks maxing or sleep maxing, has taken an unlikely political turn. The mainstream narrative had Nixon as a crook. Yeah. And he's just one of many examples, right? I was recently ranking how hot young U.S. presidents were. And I discovered that Dick Nixon here gives some serious dark romance vibes, don't you think? That's right. More than a half a century after Watergate, young conservatives are now Nixon-maxing as they recast the late Richard Nixon as a forerunner of America first.

10:43It's a historical renaissance that Vice President J.D. Vance last month said was much deserved. If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump and the first Trump administration. Journal-White House reporter Philip Wegman says that while some of the Nixon-maxing trend is organic, the renaissance is partly the result of a carefully coordinated effort from the Nixon Foundation. As early as 2018, they started planning in earnest how to make the most of the 50th anniversary of Watergate.

11:21The timing couldn't have been better for a rehabilitation. It's Trump who primes the pump for Nixon because conservatives feel that Trump is confronting all the same enemies that Nixon did. They see his ghost everywhere from Trump's legal challenges to his battles with the so-called deep state. And why I found it so different now is that the Nixon Foundation is using a different language. the meme and the viral video to reach a different audience, the Zoomers. And so what I heard again and again was, well, if they didn't tell us the truth about Trump, what are they hiding from us about Nixon? So on one hand, when younger voters are making jokes about Nixon maxing, they're being tongue in cheek.

12:03But on the other, this really is a much deeper effort to change the way these voters think about the nature of the modern Republican Party. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was production maxed by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.

12:40This podcast is brought to you by ReliatQuest. Cyber criminals are constantly attacking. They want your data. They want your identity. They want your innovation. ReliaQuest fortifies your business with agentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminates cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliaQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliaQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T dot com.