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

There were no immediate reports of damage in the UAE.

Iran and the U.S. are trading blows as their negotiators are seeking a deal to end the fighting, but so far they’ve avoided a return to all-out fighting. It's not clear how close the two sides are to deal on issues like Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. and Israel vowed to halt when they launched the war on Feb. 28, or the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway that Iran has all but closed in a bid to pressure the global economy.

On Thursday, Tehran said it was examining the latest U.S. proposals for ending the war delivered to it via Pakistan, which is serving as a mediator.

Trump played down the exchange of fire between Iran and the U.S. Navy on Thursday. In a phone call with a reporter for ABC, Trump called the retaliatory strikes against Iran “just a love tap.” He insisted the ceasefire is holding and a deal could come “any day,” but reiterated threats of bombing if Tehran does not accept a deal that allows for resumption of oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict.

Spain readies for evacuations as a hantavirus-hit cruise ship heads for the Canary Islands

MADRID (AP) — Spanish authorities on Friday were preparing to receive more than 140 passengers and crew members on board a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship headed for the Canary Islands, where health officials have said they will perform careful evacuations.

The vessel is expected to reach the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, on Saturday or Sunday.

“They will arrive at a completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” said Virginia Barcones, Spain's head of emergency services, on Thursday.

The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged vessel and Dutch officials said Friday they were also in close contact with the ship's owner and authorities of countries whose citizens are on board.

The United States has agreed to send a plane to the Canary Islands to repatriate its 17 citizens from the cruise ship, Barcones said. The British government also said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British citizens onboard.

Rubio set to meet Italy's Meloni as both sides seek to ease frictions over Iran war

ROME (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened his second day of fence-mending meetings Friday with talks scheduled with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni in a bid to ease tensions over the war with Iran.

President Donald Trump's tariffs, his complaints about Europe's unwillingness to help the U.S. with the war and his attacks against Pope Leo XIV have fueled weeks of sharp disagreements over trade and defense cooperation between the two traditionally strong allies.

Rubio also met Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani for talks on the war in Iran and the wider Middle East, Ukraine, the transition in Venezuela and Cuba and Europe-U.S. relations, including the issue of critical minerals, Italy's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The trip began Thursday with Rubio's meeting Leo as part his broader effort to defuse trans-Atlantic tensions. Meloni and Tajani are expected to use the meetings to try to preserve Italy’s strategic partnership with the U.S. while pushing back against Washington's pressure over the Iran conflict.

Trump has criticized both the pope and Italy’s government for opposing the war. Meloni has called the conflict “illegal” and rebuked Trump’s remarks about the pontiff as “unacceptable.”

Alabama Republicans look to set new US House primaries if courts allow redistricting

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama lawmakers looking to take part in a national redistricting battle could vote Friday on a plan to alter state's congressional primaries if the courts allow Republican state officials to switch to more advantageous U.S. House maps ahead of the November midterm elections.

The Alabama legislation, which needs only a final Senate vote to go to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, seeks to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case that significantly weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minorities.

Republicans in Southern states have moved quickly to try to capitalize on the case. Tennessee enacted new congressional districts Thursday that carve up a Democratic-held, Black-majority district in Memphis. Louisiana postponed its U.S. House primaries as lawmakers work to enact new districts. And Republicans in the South Carolina House also have proposed a new U.S. House map.

Even before the high court ruling, Republicans and Democrats already were engaged in a fierce redistricting battle, each seeking an edge in the midterm elections that will determine control of the closely divided House.

Since President Donald Trump prodded Texas to redraw its congressional districts last summer, a total of nine states have adopted new House districts. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10. But the parties may not get everything they sought, because the gerrymandering could backfire in some highly competitive districts.

Partial results show losses for Starmer’s Labour and wins for Reform UK in local elections

LONDON (AP) — Partial results Friday from local elections in England showed big losses for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party and gains for the hard-right party Reform U.K.

The votes are being widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he was elected less than two years ago as voters grew impatient for economic growth and dramatic change after 14 years of Conservative government.

Starmer said he took responsibility for the “very tough” results but would not resign.

“The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved,” he said. “I was elected to meet those challenges, and I’m not going to walk away from those challenges and plunge the country into chaos."

Reform UK, led by the veteran nationalist politician Nigel Farage, won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north such as Hartlepool that once were solid Labour turf, and also made gains from the Conservatives in areas like Havering in east London.

Epstein cellmate says he found a suicide note. Justice Department says it's seeing it for first time

A note that Jeffrey Epstein 's former cellmate claims to have found after the financier's first suspected jail suicide attempt in 2019 has been made public — not because of the Justice Department's release of records related to the sex offender, but as part of an unrelated case.

The government's explanation: It never had the note.

“The note has not yet been authenticated, and this is the first time DOJ is seeing it as well," the department said Thursday when asked why it wasn't part of the voluminous Epstein files.

Nicholas Tartaglione said he discovered the handwritten note in a book after the disgraced financier was found in their cell at a Manhattan federal jail with a strip of bedsheet around his neck. Epstein was subsequently moved to a different cell, where a few weeks later, he was found dead, alone, in a suicide.

Tartaglione, a former police officer then facing murder charges, said he gave the note to his lawyers to protect himself against any claim that he might have harmed Epstein while they were in custody together. Epstein was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges at the time.

World shares fall and oil prices dip after attacks imperil the ceasefire with Iran

HONG KONG (AP) — World shares retreated and oil prices fell back Friday as the fragile ceasefire with Iran was strained by missile and drone attacks that prompted U.S. retaliatory strikes on Iranian military facilities.

U.S. futures rose despite the latest flare up in the conflict. The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.5%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3%.

Investors are closely watching the war situation as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war make limited progress. Tehran said Thursday that it was still examining the latest proposals from the U.S. for ending the war.

In early European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.7% to 10,206.38. Germany's DAX shed 1% to 24,417.08, while France's CAC 40 dropped 0.8% to 8,134.92.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.2% to 62,713.65 after closing the day before at an all-time high. Energy and technology giant SoftBank Group lost 4.6% after soaring 18% on Thursday.

US lifts hold on immigration applications for doctors, but leaves others waiting

Libyan Dr. Faysal Alghoula must renew his green card to continue caring for roughly 1,000 patients in southwestern Indiana, but hasn't been able to since the Trump administration stopped reviewing applications for people from several dozen countries it deemed high-risk.

Alghoula's current visa will expire in September if his application is denied.

But last week, the administration quietly made an exemption for medical doctors with pending visa or green card applications, possibly allowing Alghoula's case to move forward. It's a move physicians organizations and immigration attorneys had sought for months, citing widespread shortages and a high proportion of foreign-trained doctors, who disproportionately work in underserved areas, according to the National Library of Medicine.

The lack of doctors is top of mind for Alghoula, a pulmonologist and Intensive Care Unit doctor who serves a mostly rural population spanning parts of Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.

“It is about four to five months wait to get the pulmonologist here,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV sought a pastoral role in his first year, but verbal sparring with Trump intervened

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV had tried during his first year as pontiff to insist that his essential role was that of a pastor accompanying his flock. President Donald Trump’s continuing criticisms – and Leo’s increasingly bold retorts – complicated the effort and overshadowed Friday’s anniversary of Leo’s election.

Leo spent the eve of the 1-year mark meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had come to the Vatican on a fence-mending visit. Trump’s repeated broadsides against history’s first U.S. pope created an unprecedented back-and-forth on issues of the Iran war and peace that strained U.S.-Holy See relations.

By the end of the visit, both the Vatican and the State Department stressed their strong bilateral ties. But the episode nevertheless pushed Leo out of his comfort zone and onto the global stage to make zingers like the one this week, after Trump's latest misrepresentation of his views. “If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth,” Leo said.

It’s all a bit out of character for Leo who — the world has come to learn in this first year — is at heart a mild-mannered, 70-year-old Midwestern missionary priest, and a reserved one at that. He likes to play the solitary game of tennis, quotes the 5th century philosopher St. Augustine from memory and insists he is merely quoting the Bible when he calls for peace.

The Trump-Leo feud aside, the former Robert Prevost seems driven not by the dramatic gesture or headline-grabbing tensions that often fueled his predecessor, Pope Francis. Rather, Leo seems inspired by the calm, persistent zeal to preach the Gospel and — thanks to his Augustinian spirituality — emphasize community and harmony.

Hungary's incoming prime minister plans a 'regime-change celebration' to mark Orbán's departure

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — As incoming prime minister Péter Magyar takes his oath of office within the halls of Hungary's sprawling neo-Gothic parliament on Saturday, thousands are expected to gather on a square just outside to celebrate the final moments of Viktor Orbán 's 16-year rule.

Magyar's center-right Tisza party defeated Orbán's nationalist-populist Fidesz in a landslide victory last month, gaining more votes and seats in parliament than any other party in Hungary's post-Communist history.

It was an earthquake mandate that will allow Tisza to roll back many of the policies that gave Orbán a reputation among many of his critics as a far-right authoritarian, and to dig into the economic system which led to the spectacular enrichment of many his allies and family members.

But before his work of governing begins, Magyar has called on Hungarians to an all-day “regime-change” celebration on Saturday to mark his inauguration — and the end of the Orbán era.

“We will step through the gateway of regime change with a huge party. Come along, and invite your family and friends!” Magyar wrote in a social media post Sunday.