AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

An airstrike on the road linking the city of Nabatiyeh with the town of Marjayoun occurred in the morning killing a brigadier general, a captain and another soldier, the army said without immediately releasing their names.

Another airstrike on the southern village of Saksakiyah killed six people and wounded four, state-run National News Agency said.

“The continued, deliberate, and repeated Israeli aggression against Lebanon, its people and its army only strengthens our resolve, faith and determination," the army said in its statement.

It said Israel's attacks aim to thwart all efforts “to reach a solution that would restore stability, establish a comprehensive ceasefire and lead to the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Lebanese territories.”

The pope is in secularized, polarized Spain, where the Catholic Church has a complex legacy

MADRID (AP) — Pope Leo XIV’s trip to Spain will bring the American pontiff to a traditional center of European Christianity, where the Catholic Church has a complex legacy and the Socialist-led government is in the midst of a political crisis.

Leo’s weeklong visit begins Saturday in Madrid, where upon landing he was greeted by the country's Catholic monarchs, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. His first day ends with a prayer vigil with young people, many of whom will be witnessing their first pope on Spanish soil.

In a sign that the clergy sexual abuse crisis continues to overshadow papal trips, the Vatican confirmed late Friday that Leo would meet with survivors during his visit. The Spanish Catholic hierarchy is belatedly reckoning with decades of abuse and cover-up in the once-staunchly Catholic country.

The visit, the first by a pope in 15 years, signals Leo is returning papal attention to Europe and its Christian roots. Pope Francis largely stayed away from the traditional centers of European Christianity in favor of smaller Catholic communities farther away.

But with the Spain trip — and a day trip to Monaco in March, a quick stop in San Marino in August and a four-day visit to France planned for September — Leo is seemingly keen to bring his message of peace, unity and human dignity to a continent in the throes of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and anxiety over artificial intelligence.

Air raid sirens in Bahrain as Iranian missiles and drones head for Gulf neighbors

CAIRO (AP) — Bahrain's government said Saturday that Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones towards it and Kuwait. The foreign ministry said they had been intercepted and called on Iran to immediately cease attacks on its Gulf neighbors.

The statement came hours after the U.S. military said it shot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones launched toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf Arab allies on Friday, while striking some of the Islamic Republic’s coastal surveillance radar sites in response, an exchange of fire that further frayed a shaky ceasefire with Tehran.

The exchange of strikes comes as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran to make a deal to end the conflict.

U.S. Central Command said on social media Friday night that Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, with U.S. forces intercepting six of the missiles and a seventh failing to reach its target. The military said there were no reports of harm to U.S. personnel.

The ballistic missiles were fired after the U.S. earlier in the day shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz.

Democrat Xavier Becerra advances to general election in race for California governor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Democrat Xavier Becerra advanced to the general election for California governor Friday after pitching himself as an experienced choice to lead the nation’s most populous state and succeed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Becerra leaned on his more than 35 years in public office, including as state attorney general and U.S. health secretary, to argue that he was the most qualified candidate in a crowded field.

“The people of the great state of California, in the greatest nation on earth, have spoken — loudly and proudly,” Becerra said in a statement. “We are never backing down. November, here we come.”

It was not yet clear who Becerra would face in the general election. His top rivals came down to Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator backed by President Donald Trump, and Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist who poured $215 million of his own money into his campaign.

Born and raised in Sacramento by Mexican immigrant parents, Becerra has a wife and three daughters. He has said his family’s immigrant background mirrored his “underdog” gubernatorial campaign, in which he initially failed to garner substantial support before surging in the final months.

Ukraine targets St. Petersburg again after Putin rejects Zelenskyy's offer for direct talks

Residents of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, were told not to leave their homes after a “large-scale” Ukrainian drone attack targeted the city Saturday morning, underscoring Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia, a day after the Russian president refused an offer to meet his Ukrainian counterpart.

St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov advised the residents not to go outside and warned of possible disruptions to mobile internet service, while Regional Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said 141 drones were shot down over the surrounding Leningrad region.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 376 Ukrainian drones.

“Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region – to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote of the attack on X.

Although no casualties were immediately reported, the renewed attack on St. Petersburg is the latest embarrassing blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that doesn’t affect Russian daily life.

Trump's deportation agenda is about to get a $70B infusion from Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — With virtually no strings attached, Congress is on the verge of providing a sizable infusion of cash to the Department of Homeland Security, powering President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the remainder of his term in the White House.

The nearly $70 billion package, which cleared the Republican-held Senate in a middle of the night vote and now heads to the House, was declared a “rotten bill” by the Democratic leader and an "ATM for ICE” by pro-immigrant advocates.

But for those aligned with Trump’s campaign promise for the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, it all but guarantees an uninterrupted flow of money to carry out the administration's immigration enforcement operations — and comes on top of some $170 billion Congress already approved for the department last summer, as part of Trump's big tax breaks bill.

“We’re going to continue to arrest people, we’re going to continue to detain people and we’re going to keep deporting people,” Trump border czar Tom Homan told CBS News on Friday.

He hinted at summer sweeps of enforcement actions coming next to New York City.

Traders face big losses after Uganda closes Congo border over Ebola contagion fears

MPONDWE BORDER, Uganda (AP) — Leah Masika was on the verge of tears as she thought of her valuable consignment of plantain stuck in a long convoy of trucks on both sides of the Uganda-Congo border. Her cargo, destined for Uganda, was starting to leak water, and would go bad within hours if there was no movement.

The Ugandan trader was awaiting clearance from authorities for trucks to pass through the Mpondwe border post on Thursday after they were prevented from entering or leaving Uganda as part of escalating measures to prevent cross-border Ebola contagion.

“Our things are here rotting,” she said.

On May 28, about two weeks after Congo declared an outbreak of Ebola in the eastern Ituri province, Uganda closed its western border in a decision that reflected growing fears of cross-border contagion. Exceptions were made only in emergency cases, including for the outbreak response, humanitarian, cargo or security reasons.

But in recent days, as the spread of Ebola in eastern Congo appeared to outpace the response, authorities in the Ugandan frontier district of Kasese have tightened the measures.

Armenia prepares for an election that could reshape ties with Moscow and the West

Armenia's parliamentary elections Sunday will be a vote on its geopolitical future as incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan seeks closer relations with the European Union and the United States despite longstanding ties with Russia that have been championed by his critics.

Many analysts favor Pashinyan's Civil Contract party to retain control of the parliament, but with many opposition parties running on pro-Russia platforms, the Caucasus nation's place on the international stage has been thrown into the spotlight.

In the months ahead of the election, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have warned Armenia that joining the EU could come at the expense of massive economic damage by disrupting Armenian trade ties with Moscow and its allies.

“These are the first elections in Armenia’s history where geopolitical orientation has become a decisive issue,” Mikayel Zolyan, an analyst and former member of the Armenian Parliament, told The Associated Press from Yerevan. “Until now, Armenia has remained within Russia’s sphere of influence, and this was taken for granted, but now, for the first time, this is being called into question.”

Relations between Moscow and Armenia soured in 2023 after Azerbaijan took control of the entire Karabakh region. The mountainous region had been controlled for decades by ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia, part of a long conflict between the neighboring countries.

Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Sam Altman are all talking about public ownership in AI

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was perhaps a surprising private overture from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The meeting between the two had come just after the Vermont senator announced a plan for the public to take a 50% ownership stake in artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, using their stock to create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by AI behemoths.

Altman told Sanders that he, too, wants the public to have equity in AI companies. Though the CEO said he couldn’t support Sanders’ threshold of 50%, he nonetheless wanted to work with him to advocate for the general idea, according to people with knowledge of the conversation.

The nearly hourlong meeting in Sanders’ Senate office this week, held at Altman's request, highlighted the inherent tension between AI powerhouses and policymakers as Americans are increasingly asked to accept the costs of the AI boom even as they remain unconvinced of its direct benefits. Yet it's also creating odd political bedfellows fueled by populism as politicians from Sanders to President Donald Trump embrace giving the public a stake in AI's growth.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump described a potential partnership “where the American people can benefit from the success of AI" and said executives from leading AI companies will visit the White House, “probably next week,” to discuss the idea.

These candidates for governor worked for Joe Biden. Some don't really talk about it though

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden is not on the ballot this fall.

But at least three prominent members of his administration will be, representing the Democratic Party in a trio of governor's races that may test the resilience of the Biden brand two years after he left the White House under a cloud of disapproval.

Two Biden Cabinet members — former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of New Mexico and former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra of California — advanced to the general election ballot for governor in their states this week. They joined Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former senior adviser, who secured the Democratic nomination in Georgia's governor's race last month.

Their rise comes as a bitter feud erupts among Biden's allies, including some who worked in the White House, about the Biden family's reemergence in the public spotlight just five months before the high-stakes midterm elections. Hunter Biden is mixing it up with admirers and critics on social media, while Jill Biden is rehashing the tortured saga of the last presidential race in a new memoir. Biden himself has his own book coming out later this year.

As candidates shift toward the general election phase of the midterms, it's unclear whether the Biden connections will help or hurt the Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls come November.