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

Iran’s joint military command said on Saturday that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state ... under strict management and control of the armed forces.” It warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.

The announcement came the morning after U.S. President Donald Trump said that even after Iran announced the strait's reopening on Friday, the American blockade “will remain in full force” until Tehran reaches a deal with the U.S., including on its nuclear program.

The conflict over the chokepoint threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy after oil prices began to fall again on Friday on hopes the U.S. and Iran were drawing closer to an agreement. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait and further limits would squeeze already constrained supply, driving prices higher once again.

Control over the strait has proven to be one Iran’s main points of leverage and prompted the United States to deploy forces and initiate a blockade on Iranian ports as part of an effort to force Iran to accept a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire to end almost seven weeks of war that has raged between Israel, the U.S. and Iran.

US extends waiver on Russian oil sanctions to ease Iran war shortages despite Bessent denial

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday extended its pause on sanctions on Russian oil shipments to ease shortages from the Iran war, days after Secretary Scott Bessent ruled out such a move.

The so-called general license means U.S. sanctions will not apply for 30 days on deliveries of Russian oil that has been loaded on tankers as of Friday. It extended a similar 30-day license issued in March for Russian oil that had been loaded by March 11. The extension underscores how the fallout from the Iran war has boosted Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports, which had been restrained since the invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Bessent ruled out extending the license. “We will not be renewing the general license on Russian oil, and we will not be renewing the general license on Iranian oil,” he said. The administration did not immediately explain the reversal.

Eyewitnesses recount three deadly Israeli strikes on medics in southern Lebanon

NABATIYEH, Lebanon (AP) — It was late morning when two ambulances slowed to a stop outside of the village of Mayfadoun in southern Lebanon.

Having heard minutes earlier on Wednesday that Israel had attacked two other ambulances, hitting one and then the other after it showed up to help the first, they didn't hesitate before rushing to the scene. They knew the danger, and they found a hellscape.

The first two ambulances were destroyed, their tires blown and windows shattered. Six of their eight crew members were covered in blood and lying in the road or the back of one vehicle. A paramedic in one of the driver’s seats, blood pulsing from his abdomen, was cradling a colleague in his lap, pleading with him to stay conscious.

“I felt sick. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Mohammed Jaber, 43, told The Associated Press on Friday from his emergency team's headquarters in Nabatiyeh, where team members dozed on foam mattresses. A 10-day truce in the Israel-Hezbollah war delivered the exhausted team a rare respite from the drum line of explosions.

Jaber said he and the others hurried to load the most critically injured into their working ambulances. As team leader Mahdi Abu Zaid ran to close the doors, they, too, were attacked.

Russia has looted thousands of Ukrainian cultural objects in the war. Finding them is a challenge

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When Alina Dotsenko returned to her museum after Ukrainian forces retook the southern city of Kherson from Russian forces in late 2022, she found thousands of artworks had vanished.

“I walked in and saw empty storage rooms, empty shelves. My legs gave way, and I just sat down by the wall, like a child,” the Kherson Art Museum director said.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022, the museum held more than 14,000 works in a collection “ranging from America to Japan.” As the Russians retreated, they loaded much of it onto trucks and took it to Russian-annexed Crimea, according to Dotsenko and video filmed by residents.

The fate of nearly 10,000 pieces remains unknown.

Ukraine is again raising its voice over the looting as Russia seeks to return to the world's cultural stage. Next month's Venice Biennale plans to allow Russian representatives to take part for the first time since 2022. Ukraine has said the event “must not become a stage for whitewashing the war crimes that Russia commits daily against the Ukrainian people and our cultural heritage.”

Federal judge blocks Nexstar-Tegna TV station merger until antitrust lawsuit is settled

A federal judge has blocked a $6.2 billion merger of local television giants Nexstar Media Group and rival Tegna until an antitrust lawsuit is resolved.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley in Sacramento, California, made the ruling late Friday afternoon, finding that eight attorneys general and DirecTV were likely to prevail in their legal bid to stop the merger. The attorneys general, all Democrats, and DirecTV contend the merger will lead to higher prices for consumers, stifle local journalism and that the deal runs afoul of federal laws designed to protect against monopolies.

The deal, announced last year and approved by the Federal Communications Commission, would create a company that owns 265 television stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia, most of them local affiliates of one of the “Big Four” national networks: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.

That would likely give Nexstar the power to raise the retransmission fees it charges to video programming distributors like DirecTV, which means higher bills for consumers, Nunley wrote. The company also has a track record of consolidating local television news stations when it owns more than one station in a market, the judge said, meaning viewers “will lose options for where to get their local news.”

The deal could also force distributors like DirecTV to comply with Nexstar’s demands for higher broadcast fees or risk leaving subscribers potentially unable to watch things like Sunday NFL football games, the judge said.

Weapons-grade chemical carfentanil surges as dangerous substitute for fentanyl

Nearly two decades after drug addiction sent him to rehab as a teenager, 36-year-old Michael Nalewaja had settled into a quiet life in Alaska where he worked as an electrician.

That all came crashing down days before Thanksgiving 2025, when he and a mutual friend unknowingly took a lethal cocktail of fentanyl and carfentanil they may have mistaken for cocaine.

“I heard the word ‘autopsy’ and I literally just collapsed to the floor,” his mother, Kelley Nalewaja said, recalling the call she received from his wife. “Even if somebody had been there prepared with Narcan — even if somebody had called 911 in time — he was not going to survive.”

Carfentanil, a weapons-grade chemical that authorities say is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl, has seen a drastic resurgence across the U.S., killing hundreds of unsuspecting drug users.

The rise coincides with a recent crackdown by the Chinese government on the sale of precursors used to make fentanyl. Those regulations are likely prompting traffickers in Mexico to use carfentanil to boost the potency of a weakened version of fentanyl, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence bulletins reviewed by The Associated Press.

Starmer's Mandelson nightmare never ends. This time, it may cost him his job as UK leader

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer probably wishes he had never heard the name Peter Mandelson.

Starmer is again facing questions over his future. And again, it’s do with his misguided decision to appoint a self-professed “best pal” of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the plummiest of plum jobs in U.K. diplomacy — ambassador to the United States.

Two months ago when he was last imperiled over the appointment in late 2024, it was his judgment that was in question. Enough for some in his Labour Party, including its leader in Scotland, to urge him to stand down.

Now, he’s facing accusations that he misled Parliament over how Mandelson cleared the official hurdles to get the job in the first place.

If he’s found to have done so, he will be on very thin ice, not least because Starmer put integrity at the heart of his pitch to the British electorate at the July 2024 election to replace the scandal-plagued Conservatives.

US and Cuban officials met recently in Havana amid new diplomatic push

WASHINGTON (AP) — An American delegation recently met with Cuban government officials in the island nation, marking a renewed diplomatic push even as U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene and Cuba's leader said this week that his country is prepared to fight if that should happen.

A senior State Department official met with the grandson of retired Cuban leader Raúl Castro last week during the trip, according to a department official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke Friday on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

The official did not say who from the U.S. met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, whose grandfather is believed to play an influential role in the Cuban government despite not holding an official post. A second U.S. official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was not part of the delegation that visited Havana.

U.S. officials have previously said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime Cuba hawk, met the younger Castro in the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis in February.

During last week's extraordinary diplomatic push, which was reported earlier by Axios, the U.S. delegation urged Cuba to make major changes to its economy and way of governing because it would not let the island nation become a national security threat in the region, the State Department official said.

Key prosecutor in John Brennan investigation has been removed from case, AP source says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lead prosecutor in the John Brennan investigation has been removed from the case after expressing concerns to Justice Department officials about the legal strength of a potential criminal prosecution of the former CIA director, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

Maria Medetis Long told defense lawyers involved in the investigation that she was no longer participating in the Brennan investigation. Her departure from the investigation came after she conveyed doubt that there was sufficient evidence for a criminal case against Brennan, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press to discuss internal Justice Department conversations.

The Justice Department did not dispute that Medetis Long was no longer part of the investigation but also did not elaborate on the circumstances of her departure. The department said in a statement that “as a matter of routine practice, attorneys are moved around on cases so offices can most effectively allocate resources. It is completely healthy and normal to change members of legal teams.”

CNN first reported Medetis Long's departure from the investigation. She referred a request for comment to a spokesperson for her office, who did not immediately provide a statement.

Medetis Long heads the national security section at the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida, which for months has been scrutinizing Brennan in connection with one of President Donald Trump's chief grievances — the U.S. government's years-old investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign for the White House.

Pope Leo XIV's visit to an African church linked to slavery reflects on his own complex heritage

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The Church of Our Lady of Muxima was built by Portuguese colonizers in Angola at the end of the 16th century as part of a fortress complex and became a hub in the slave trade. It remains a reminder of the inextricable link hundreds of years ago between Catholicism and the exploitation of the African continent.

Pope Leo XIV’s planned visit to the church in the town of Muxima on Sunday as part of his Africa tour is in recognition of it becoming a popular Catholic shrine after believers reported an appearance by the Virgin Mary around 1833.

But before that, the white-walled church on the edge of the Kwanza River was a point where enslaved Africans were gathered to be baptized by Portuguese priests before being forced to walk the last 145 kilometers (90 miles) to Angola’s main port of Luanda to be put on ships to the Americas.

The Portuguese colonizers were emboldened by 15th-century directives from the Vatican that authorized them to enslave non-Christians.

Ultimately, more than 5 million people left from Angola on the trans-Atlantic slave route, more than any other country and nearly half of the roughly 12.5 million African slaves sent across the ocean.