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  • Rodri set to arrive as Barcelona finalize transfer of Spain captain from Man City

    Rodri set to arrive as Barcelona finalize transfer of Spain captain from Man City

    MADRID – Fresh off lifting the FIFA World Cup trophy with Spain and claiming the tournament’s Golden Ball award, elite midfielder Rodri is scheduled to touch down in Barcelona on Monday to finalize his high-profile transfer from English Premier League champion Manchester City to the Catalan La Liga side, multiple sources confirmed.

    The 30-year-old star is expected to complete his mandatory medical examination this week as officials from both clubs exchange final administrative documentation to formalize the transfer agreement. An anonymous insider with direct knowledge of the deal, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the unannounced nature of the negotiations, confirmed Barcelona has agreed to a transfer fee totaling 76.5 million euros, equal to roughly $88.5 million.

    Rodri’s move to Camp Nou reunites him with several of his Spanish national team teammates, including rising star Lamine Yamal, creative midfielder Dani Olmo, young center-back Pau Cubarsí, and fan-favorite playmakers Gavi and Pedri. The World Cup winner was out of contract with Manchester City in just 12 months, leaving the Premier League side with little choice but to negotiate a sale this offseason to avoid losing him for free next year.

    The transfer to Barcelona comes after a period of speculation that also linked Rodri to Spanish rival Real Madrid, who were reportedly keen on a move for the midfielder at one point. Rodri himself has publicly praised Real Madrid, Barcelona’s longstanding domestic foe, in past interviews, adding an extra layer of drama to his eventual move to the Catalan club.

    Under head coach Hansi Flick, Barcelona is targeting a third consecutive La Liga title this season, and has already moved to strengthen its squad following the off-season departures of star striker Robert Lewandowski and attacking midfielder Ferran Torres – the man who scored Spain’s extra-time match-winner in the 2026 World Cup final against Argentina. To offset those exits, Barcelona already added English forward Anthony Gordon earlier in the transfer window, and Rodri’s arrival adds further elite quality to Flick’s starting lineup.

    Rodri first signed for Manchester City from La Liga side Atletico Madrid back in 2019, and went on to become one of the most influential midfielders in the club’s recent history. He scored the decisive winning goal in City’s 2023 UEFA Champions League final victory over Inter Milan, which completed a historic treble for the English club. A year later, after helping Spain claim the UEFA European Championship title, Rodri won the Ballon d’Or, honoring him as the top men’s soccer player on the planet.

    Rodri’s exit marks the second major midfield departure for Manchester City this offseason, following star playmaker Bernardo Silva’s transfer to Real Madrid earlier in the summer. The double exit leaves a significant gap in manager Pep Guardiola’s midfield corps that will require urgent reinforcement before the new season kicks off.

    Rodri did not feature in Manchester City’s 3-0 defeat to Arsenal in the 2025 FA Community Shield on Sunday, as he continues his recovery from minor back surgery he underwent shortly after the conclusion of the World Cup. The Associated Press contributed to this report, with additional reporting from AP Sports Writers Steve Douglas and Joseph Wilson.

  • British leader reportedly exchanged messages with impostor of top White House official

    British leader reportedly exchanged messages with impostor of top White House official

    LONDON – Multiple published reports have revealed that Britain’s newly installed Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged direct communications with a fraudulent imposter claiming to be Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff to U.S. President Donald Trump. The revelation brings to light a growing pattern of malicious AI-enabled impersonation that has targeted high-ranking officials across North America and Europe in recent months.

    Politico was the first outlet to break the story, citing four anonymous government sources who confirmed that Burnham initially believed he was in legitimate contact with Wiles, before raising suspicion and terminating the interaction abruptly. When approached for confirmation, a spokesperson for the prime minister’s office declined to provide further details, citing the government’s longstanding policy of not commenting on matters related to national security.

    This incident is not an isolated case. A year prior, U.S. federal authorities launched a full investigation into a string of suspicious messages sent to sitting elected officials, top business leaders, and other high-profile public figures across the United States, all originating from a scammer impersonating Wiles. In the immediate aftermath of those earlier incidents, the U.S. Department of State issued an official alert to all American diplomatic personnel warning of bad actors using artificial intelligence to mimic senior U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The warning was prompted by the discovery that a scammer posing as Rubio had attempted to initiate contact with at least three sitting foreign ministers, one U.S. senator, and one U.S. state governor.

    Federal law enforcement, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has already publicly cautioned the global political community about the growing threat of “malicious actors” misusing generative artificial intelligence to convincingly impersonate senior government leaders for strategic or harmful purposes.

    Burnham, who took office as prime minister less than four weeks ago, has made rebuilding warm bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and the Trump White House a key early foreign policy priority. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, initially enjoyed a positive rapport with Trump when he took office, but that relationship quickly deteriorated in subsequent months.

  • US hiker dies after being struck by lightning on Mount Etna

    US hiker dies after being struck by lightning on Mount Etna

    Europe’s most consistently active volcano, Mount Etna on Italy’s Sicily island, has become the site of a tragic tourist death following a sudden lightning strike, as a surge of visitors drawn by recent volcanic activity clashes with repeated official safety warnings.

    The victim, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen whose identity has not been released by Italian authorities, was hiking on the volcano Sunday when an unexpected thunderstorm rolled across the mountain’s upper slopes, according to local Italian media reports. First responders from the local fire department and emergency response teams located the hiker around 8 p.m. local time (6 p.m. GMT) in a restricted access zone. This off-limits area is regularly used by adventurous visitors seeking unobstructed views closer to Etna’s smoking summit.

    When first responders arrived, the hiker was already in cardiac arrest. He was airlifted via emergency helicopter to Cannizzaro Hospital in the nearby Sicilian city of Catania, but medical teams pronounced him dead upon his arrival at the facility.

    The tragedy unfolds against a backdrop of intensifying volcanic activity at Etna over the past several weeks. A string of consecutive eruptions has sent plumes of thick ash across the skies of eastern Sicily, forcing widespread disruption to air travel at Catania International Airport. Hundreds of commercial flights were canceled or diverted over the past week due to the ash cloud hazard, and aviation authorities only downgraded the official alert level from the highest red rating to orange this past Saturday.

    Despite the disruptions and growing risks, the recent dramatic eruptions have drawn large numbers of curious tourists to the volcano’s slopes, echoing a long-running trend where volcanic activity boosts visitor numbers to the site. Mount Etna draws roughly 1.5 million visitors to its slopes annually, making it one of Sicily’s most popular natural tourist attractions.

    In response to the heightened volcanic activity, local authorities have already implemented strict restrictions on access to large sections of the mountain, particularly the upper slopes above the tree line, where there is almost no natural or built shelter for visitors caught in sudden storms. Italy’s national civil protection agency has repeatedly warned visitors that the combination of ongoing volcanic instability and fast-changing, unpredictable weather at higher elevations creates extremely dangerous conditions that can turn deadly in minutes.

  • US tourist dies after being struck by lightning while hiking Sicily’s Mount Etna

    US tourist dies after being struck by lightning while hiking Sicily’s Mount Etna

    MILAN, Italy – A sudden and tragic lightning strike has claimed the life of a 29-year-old American hiker on Sicily’s iconic Mount Etna, a site that has been roiled by ongoing volcanic activity that forced large swathes of the volcano to be closed off to the public, Italian fire brigade officials confirmed in a statement released Monday.

    The victim, a resident of Kansas whose identity has not been made public at this stage, was hit by the bolt Sunday evening while trekking across an open, exposed stretch of the volcano that sits above the alpine tree line. Emergency responders deployed a rescue helicopter to reach the isolated site and extract the injured hiker, but medical teams pronounced him dead shortly after the incident.

    Mount Etna, Europe’s most consistently active volcano, has seen an extended period of volcanic unrest in recent weeks. This heightened activity prompted authorities to cordon off large sections of the volcano’s slopes from hikers and other visitors, and it also forced the temporary shutdown of Catania Fontanarossa Airport, the main air hub serving eastern Sicily, for the majority of last week.

    What many casual visitors to the popular hiking destination do not realize, however, is that lightning strikes have historically posed a greater threat to life on Mount Etna than volcanic eruptions themselves. Local officials note that over the past several decades, more people have lost their lives to lightning strikes on the volcano than to direct impacts from volcanic activity. The last fatalities linked directly to an eruption on Mount Etna date back to 1987, underscoring the underrecognized risk of storm-related hazards on the peak.

  • Real Madrid agrees to send young center forward Jacobo Ortega to Strasbourg

    Real Madrid agrees to send young center forward Jacobo Ortega to Strasbourg

    In a Monday announcement, Spanish football giant Real Madrid confirmed it has reached an agreement to transfer 20-year-old center forward Jacobo Ortega to French Ligue 1 club RC Strasbourg. The La Liga side did not disclose any financial or additional contractual details of the transfer, leaving terms of the deal undisclosed to the public.

    Ortega, who emerged through Real Madrid’s youth academy, built his reputation as a promising attacking talent with a key performance in last season’s UEFA Youth League final. The young striker found the back of the net against Belgium’s Club Brugge in the title decider, which was held on April 20 in Lausanne, Switzerland. After 90 minutes ended in a 1-1 draw, Real Madrid claimed the trophy by beating Club Brugge in a penalty shootout. This marked the second time Real Madrid has lifted the UEFA Youth League crown since the competition was launched 12 years ago, highlighting the strength of the club’s youth development system.

    Strasbourg, for its part, confirmed that Ortega has put pen to paper on a contract that will keep him at the French club through 2031. The transfer marks another major addition to Strasbourg’s squad this summer transfer window, coming just weeks after the club secured American international midfielder Gio Reyna from German Bundesliga side Borussia Mönchengladbach earlier this month.

    Strasbourg currently operates under the same shared ownership structure as English Premier League club Chelsea. Last season, the Ligue 1 side finished eighth in the French top flight, a result that meant the club missed out on qualification for any European competitions for the upcoming 2024-2025 campaign. The additions of Ortega and Reyna signal the club’s ambition to climb the Ligue 1 table and earn European qualification in the coming season.

  • Belgian wildfire approaches Germany despite rain as Greece probes deadly blaze

    Belgian wildfire approaches Germany despite rain as Greece probes deadly blaze

    As Europe grapples with one of the hottest and driest summers documented in modern history, a crisis amplified by human-caused climate change according to recent research, multiple wildfire events across the continent have stretched emergency response capabilities and forced mass evacuations. In Belgium, one of the largest wildfires the country has ever seen continued to burn out of control on Monday, even as a welcome cold front brought overnight rain that softened conditions for hundreds of firefighters battling the blaze.

    The fire, located in the eastern High Fens nature region roughly 5 miles from the German border, shifted into a dense pine forest on Sunday before spreading east toward German territory. As of Monday, the blaze in Liège province had charred an estimated 12 square miles of land, leaving a landscape of blackened tree trunks and smoldering undergrowth. By early Monday, a thin fog mixed with the acrid scent of wood smoke hung over the burned area.

    Belgium’s King Philippe broke off his scheduled summer vacation to meet with the emergency teams deployed to the fire zone. Dozens of local firefighters have been reinforced by aerial support from Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, with local police operating drones to track fire movement in hard-to-reach areas. While the overnight rain helped slow the spread of the fire and reduce the risk of smoldering hotspots reigniting, it failed to fully extinguish the core of the blaze, regional public services spokesperson Nicolas Yernaux explained.

    Yernaux noted that containment crews have held the fire along their current operational lines, but a large section of the active burn remains in completely inaccessible terrain, advancing toward the German town of Monschau. “Where it is burning, I am not sure it [the rain] is really helping,” he added.

    Precautionary evacuation orders for hundreds of local residents remained in place on Monday, and local tourism businesses have already taken a heavy financial hit. Thomas van Sante, owner of the Mont Dragon hotel near the fire zone, confirmed that tourists have fled the area en masse and dozens of upcoming reservations have been canceled. Echoing Yernaux’s assessment, he noted, “There’s rain now but it is not enough.”

    To the south, Greece has been battling a wave of fire outbreaks across the country, just days after a fast-moving blaze on the island of Salamina, located just west of Athens, claimed two lives, injured nine others and destroyed multiple residential properties. On Monday, fire investigators continued processing the scene of the Salamina fire, while new blazes popped up across the country.

    One new fire broke out in Spata, a suburban area east of Athens that is home to Athens International Airport, the country’s main air travel hub. Dozens of firefighters, supported by two water-dropping aircraft and two helicopters, were rapidly deployed to the site and contained the blaze within 30 minutes, preventing any disruption to airport operations.

    In a separate development, Greek fire department officials announced the arrest of an 80-year-old man in the northern town of Kavala on deliberate arson charges, accusing him of intentionally setting fire to dry brush. The arrest is one of 302 fire-related detentions Greek authorities have made since the start of 2024: 31 of those arrests are for intentional arson, while 271 stem from negligent behavior that sparked accidental wildfires.

    Further west in southwestern France, emergency officials have announced progress in taming a blaze in the Landes region. After four days of nonstop fire suppression work, the fire is now fully under control. Around 600 local residents were evacuated last week as extreme heat pushed the blaze to burn roughly 6.6 square miles of land. With temperatures starting to drop on Monday, around half of the evacuated residents have been allowed to return to their homes.

    This report contains contributions from AP correspondents in Paris and Argostoli, Greece.

  • Ukraine energy company says its facilities seriously damaged after 13 Russian strikes in a week

    Ukraine energy company says its facilities seriously damaged after 13 Russian strikes in a week

    As the colder winter months approach, Ukraine’s state-owned energy giant Naftogaz Group has revealed a sharp spike in Russian attacks targeting its operations, shedding new light on Moscow’s long-standing strategy of weaponizing weather to erode Ukrainian civilian resilience amid the ongoing full-scale invasion.

    In a public statement released Monday, the company confirmed that Russian forces carried out 13 separate strikes on Naftogaz facilities across Ukraine in the seven-day period ending Sunday. Since the start of 2025, the energy provider’s infrastructure has been targeted nearly 300 times overall. The latest wave of attacks left critical equipment and production capabilities severely damaged, though no Naftogaz staff members were reported injured in the assaults. Strikes hit energy sites across multiple Ukrainian regions, with one key facility hit repeatedly over the week.

    This campaign against energy infrastructure is part of a broader pattern that has persisted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. For more than three years, Moscow has systematically targeted Ukraine’s national power grid, launching barrages during cold winter months to cut off civilian access to electricity, heating, and running water — a tactic Ukrainian officials have labeled “weaponizing winter” — with the explicit goal of breaking Ukrainian public resolve to continue the war. Ukrainian authorities warn they expect this aggressive campaign against critical energy infrastructure to continue through the upcoming winter season.

    The escalation of energy attacks comes as both sides expand long-range aerial operations amid a largely stalemated ground conflict. With troop movements largely frozen along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line, where drone and robotic surveillance and defense have bogged down large-scale advances, both Russia and Ukraine are pouring resources into developing new long-range weaponry and ramping up cross-border strikes.

    On Monday, officials on both sides released casualty tolls from overnight strikes: Ukrainian long-range attacks into Russian territory left seven people dead, while four Ukrainian civilians were killed in new Russian barrages. After relying heavily on foreign military support in the first years of the invasion, Ukraine has rapidly scaled up domestic weapons production in recent months. Over the weekend, Kyiv launched a massive salvo of more than 800 domestically produced long-range drones targeting sites inside Russia, and has successfully struck targets as far as 2,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, including storage depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest domestic e-commerce retailer. One recent high-profile strike deep inside Russian territory ignited a major fire at a key oil refinery.

    United Nations data underscores the growing toll of intensified Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian populations. As of recent counts, Russian attacks on urban civilian sites including apartment buildings, ports, schools, and hospitals have killed nearly 17,000 Ukrainian civilians since the invasion began. Last week, the UN reported that the 437 civilian casualties recorded in July 2025 marked a 70% increase compared to the same month a year earlier, as Russian barrages have grown more frequent and intense.

    Moscow has recently taken advantage of a critical gap in Ukraine’s air defense capabilities: a severe shortage of American-made Patriot interceptor missiles, the only system currently in Ukraine’s arsenal that can effectively counter Russian ballistic missiles. Despite this challenge, Kyiv is moving quickly to address the gap through domestic innovation and international partnership. Ukraine is currently developing its own domestically produced ballistic missile to conduct retaliatory strikes against Russian targets, and is collaborating with multiple European nations to expand production of domestic anti-ballistic air defense systems.

    This ongoing escalation of long-range attacks, particularly against critical energy infrastructure ahead of winter, has raised new concerns about the humanitarian impact on Ukrainian civilians as the war enters its fourth year.

  • Ukrainian strikes kill six in Russia, acting governor says

    Ukrainian strikes kill six in Russia, acting governor says

    A fresh wave of reciprocal deadly strikes between Russia and Ukraine has left at least 13 people dead across both territories, escalating a rapid intensification of cross-border attacks that has marked the latest phase of the full-scale war now in its fourth year.

    Acting governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, a border area that has faced frequent attacks amid the conflict, Alexander Shuvaev, confirmed via a Telegram post Monday that six people were killed and four more injured in overnight Ukrainian missile strikes on the region. Among the wounded was a 14-year-old child, who was transported to a hospital for treatment, while two additional injured people received on-site medical care. The attack damaged a local building and set fire to a vehicle in the village of Koloskovo, located in Valuysky district just kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border.

    This latest strike came just 24 hours after Russian officials described what they called the largest-scale Ukrainian attack on Russian territory so far this year. That assault, launched Saturday night, saw Ukraine deploy a total of 822 drones across multiple Russian regions, with more than 600 of those unmanned vehicles targeting Moscow alone. Russian regional authorities called the assault on the capital one of the most massive drone strikes it has faced in recent years.

    Saturday’s attack left seven people dead across Russia: five in the southwestern Rostov region, one woman killed when a civilian bus in Belgorod was hit, and an 83-year-old man who died in a drone strike in the Moscow region. A major logistics warehouse belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer often dubbed the country’s equivalent to Amazon, was also damaged. Ukraine’s defense ministry confirmed Sunday that it has repeatedly targeted Wildberries facilities since July, and that the latest strikes have disabled seven out of the company’s 10 largest logistics hubs.

    Russia responded immediately to the Ukrainian drone offensive with its own intensified wave of missile and bomb strikes across Ukraine over the weekend, which left seven Ukrainians dead and more than 39 others injured. In Zaporizhzhia, one man and one woman were killed when a guided aerial bomb struck a private residence, with five additional fatalities recorded in attacks across other Ukrainian regions. On Monday, Ukrainian national energy company Naftogaz announced that Russian forces had targeted its energy infrastructure facilities 13 times across the country over the preceding seven days.

    One of the Russian strikes on Kyiv Saturday night hit an open-air book market in the city’s Pochayna district, leaving charred books scattered across the ground in images released to media. Russia stated that its strikes on the capital targeted two military-related facilities: a FirePoint production site manufacturing parts for Ukrainian Flamingo missiles, and a factory producing components for Ukrainian unmanned combat drones.

    Speaking this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that Russian attacks have hit 13 of the country’s regions over the past seven days, with Russian forces launching over 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles against targets inside Ukraine. Both Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly denied intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure and civilian populations, and each accuses the other of attacking non-military sites as a tactic of war.

    Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently maintains control of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory. Over recent weeks, Kyiv has dramatically stepped up the frequency and scale of drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, targeting infrastructure and military sites hundreds of kilometers from the front line.

  • Post-mortems to take place after five boys killed in crash on wrong side of motorway

    Post-mortems to take place after five boys killed in crash on wrong side of motorway

    A devastating early-morning wrong-way collision on a major Irish motorway has left five teenage boys dead and multiple other people, including a child, with critical injuries, sending shockwaves across the local community of County Kildare.

    The crash unfolded at approximately 3 a.m. local time on Sunday, between Junction 3 and Junction 4 of the M9 motorway near Moone, along the northbound carriageway. According to official confirmation from Gardaí, Ireland’s national police service, the vehicle carrying the five teenagers was traveling against the flow of traffic, moving southbound along the northbound lanes, when it struck an oncoming car head-on.

    Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly confirmed in the wake of the incident that no police pursuit of the teenagers’ vehicle was underway before the collision took place. Forensic investigation teams have already wrapped up their on-site evidence collection, and post-mortem examinations are scheduled to be conducted on the bodies of the five deceased boys in the coming days.

    The occupants of the second vehicle hit in the collision included three women — two in their 30s and one in her 20s — and a young child. All four were rushed to nearby hospitals with serious, life-altering injuries. Local councillor Ivan Keatley of Fine Gael told media that preliminary information suggests the family was en route to an airport to begin a planned holiday when the tragedy occurred.

    Commissioner Kelly labeled the crash an unthinkable, horrific incident rooted in reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous driving. In stark comments addressing a growing trend of dangerous road behavior, he noted that some wrong-way driving incidents are carried out intentionally to garner social media engagement, putting countless innocent lives at risk for online likes. “What makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media likes regardless of the potentially devastating impact it might have on innocent people and themselves,” Kelly said. He added that Gardaí operate under immense pressure when responding to such incidents, balancing the need to stop dangerous vehicles while protecting the safety of all other road users.

    Local officials described the immediate aftermath of the crash as profoundly disturbing. Keatley explained that a passing motorist stumbled on the scene first and raised the alarm, with emergency services arriving at the site almost instantly. The wreckage of the two vehicles was visible from a nearby motorway bridge, and the extent of the damage made the severity of the incident immediately clear. “Horrific is the only way that could describe the condition that the two cars were left in,” Keatley told BBC NI’s *Good Morning Ulster*. He added that the local community has moved from initial shock and disbelief to widespread anger that such a preventable tragedy could occur. “Obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and we are all hoping that the other injured parties can pull through,” he said.

    Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh, a Sinn Féin TD for Kildare South, echoed those sentiments, describing the crash as an absolutely catastrophic event. “This loss of life is colossal and the effect those losses will have on their friends and families is incalculable,” she said.

    In a public appeal, Gardaí have asked any drivers who were traveling on that stretch of the M9 around the time of the collision, or any witnesses who saw the incident or the wrong-way vehicle before the crash, to contact investigators with any information that could aid the inquiry.

  • World shares are mixed and oil prices slip after worries over stagflation pull US stocks lower

    World shares are mixed and oil prices slip after worries over stagflation pull US stocks lower

    BANGKOK – Global equity markets delivered a fragmented performance across Europe and Asia on Monday, one trading session after U.S. stocks retreated from their recent all-time peak, dragged down by a worse-than-anticipated reading on the world’s largest economy. Energy prices also edged lower amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty affecting global supply chains.

    In early trading hours across European exchanges, benchmark indexes showed minimal movement overall. Germany’s DAX held almost entirely steady, posting near-zero change to close the early session at 26,429.59. France’s CAC 40 dipped by a modest 0.1% to land at 8,630.45, while the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 notched a small 0.2% gain to reach 10,773.91. Looking to futures contracts tied to major U.S. indexes, the S&P 500 future ticked up 0.1% ahead of the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%.

    Across Asian markets, the picture was similarly split. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.7% to hit 69,220.25, buoyed by upwardly revised GDP data from the Japanese government. The report showed the country’s economy expanded slightly faster than projected in the April-June quarter, recording a 1.1% annualized growth rate, even though private consumption and capital investment held flat and export expansion decelerated. On a quarterly basis, Japan’s GDP grew 0.3% over the first three months of the year.

    In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index advanced 1.6% to 25,517.88, and mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.4% to close at 3,982.65. South Korean markets remained closed for a national holiday. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 retreated 0.5% to 9,073.20, while Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.1% and India’s Sensex slipped 0.3%.

    The uneven global trading follows a pullback on Wall Street this past Friday, when the S&P 500 fell 0.2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also dipped 0.2%, after government data showed U.S. retail sales declined last month. While soft consumer spending could pave the way for the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold interest rates at lower levels – a dynamic that generally boosts asset valuations for investors – the weaker reading also signals potential economic slowing at a time when inflation remains elevated above the central bank’s target. The Nasdaq composite shed 0.3% in Friday’s session.

    Market participants are turning their focus to this week’s packed earnings calendar, which will feature quarterly reports from some of the U.S.’s largest retail chains. Home Depot is set to release its results on Tuesday, followed by Target and Lowe’s on Wednesday, and Walmart on Thursday. These reports are expected to offer investors granular insight into how both businesses and consumers are navigating persistently high inflation that has eroded purchasing power across much of the economy. In addition to earnings, the Federal Reserve will publish the meeting minutes from its July policy gathering this Wednesday, giving analysts more context into the central bank’s thinking on future interest rate moves.

    Stagflation, defined as a period of stalled economic growth paired with persistent high inflation, remains a worst-case scenario for markets because the Fed has no policy tools that can effectively address both problems at once. Tightening policy to curb inflation can worsen growth slowdowns, while cutting rates to stimulate growth can push already high inflation even higher.

    In energy markets on Monday, benchmark crude prices fell. Brent crude, the global pricing standard, declined 0.3% to $88.24 per barrel, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude slipped 0.9% to $81.65 per barrel. Oil market sentiment remains jittery amid unclear prospects for a diplomatic resolution to tensions around Iran, with the critical Strait of Hormuz – a key shipping chokepoint for Middle Eastern oil and gas exports – facing disruptions that threaten global supply stability.

    In currency markets, the U.S. dollar weakened against the Japanese yen, falling to 158.88 yen from 159.32 yen in previous trading. The euro ticked higher against the dollar, rising to $1.1611 from $1.1588.