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

The American attack, which lasted into Thursday morning in Iran, appeared more intense and wider than the day before, but Tehran released little information on the extent of the damage. An Indian official said a U.S. attack on an oil tanker allegedly trying to violate Washington’s blockade on Iranian ports killed three Indian mariners, underscoring the danger to seafarers.

It was the third time this week that back-and-forth strikes have rattled the Middle East. The first involved attacks between Iran and Israel, followed by the two rounds of fire between the U.S. and Iran, which hit countries in the region that host American bases.

The new exchange of fire came as efforts to negotiate an end to the war appeared stuck, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning that Tehran would “pay the price” for stalled negotiations. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the U.S. attacks had “effectively rendered the ceasefire ... meaningless,” without saying it was abandoning it.

Central to the negotiations is Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted global energy supplies, driven up fuel prices and made food and other basics more expensive well beyond the region.

Storms knock out power in the Midwest and disrupt Chicago flights

Damaging storms swept through the Midwest, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers and causing more than a thousand flight delays or cancellations at Chicago airports.

The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings Wednesday across Illinois, Kansas, northern Missouri and southern Iowa, while severe thunderstorm watches were in place for parts of the Great Lakes.

Storms moved into the Chicago area on Wednesday afternoon, downing trees and damaging some buildings.

The two major Chicago airports, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway International Airport, temporarily put all flights on hold in the evening due to thunderstorms. A similar ground stop was issued at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York due to thunderstorms.

By Wednesday evening, more than 1,000 flights going into and out of Chicago had been delayed or canceled, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website.

Philippine town seeks immediate airlift of food to ease hunger in quake-hit villages

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines (AP) — The mayor of a southern Philippine town that was devastated by a powerful earthquake pleaded Thursday for helicopters to transport food to stave off hunger in several landslide-isolated villages.

The 7.8 magnitude offshore quake, one of the strongest to hit the Philippine archipelago in a half century, struck Monday off the southern province of Sarangani and has left at least 47 people dead and injured 688 with 31 still missing.

More than 45,000 people remained displaced, about half in emergency shelters, after the quake damaged more than 12,600 houses in farming towns and cities. Many were still too traumatized to return home due to aftershocks, provincial officials said.

Sarangani reported 20 dead from the quake, the highest toll from the affected provinces, mostly due to a landslide that buried houses in the coastal town of Glan, according to the government's Office of Civil Defense, which deals with major disasters.

Glan Mayor Victor James Yap said power has not been restored to his province and 10 of 31 villages in his town of more than 100,000 people remained inaccessible mostly due to landslides. He asked the government to immediately deploy air force helicopters to deliver food and other aid to the stricken areas.

The 'King of the North' seeks a path to becoming Britain's next leader in a special election

ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD, England (AP) — About 75,000 voters in a pocket of northwest England are about to make a momentous decision. They will cast ballots in a contest that may well pick the U.K.’s next prime minister, or plunge Britain's febrile politics into even more turmoil. Possibly both.

Some of them aren’t too enthusiastic.

“I think they’re all a waste of time,” said Shirley Prior on the choice of candidates in Makerfield, where a special election on June 18 has drawn interest from journalists around the world. That level of attention is all-but unheard of for a midterm by-election to fill one of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

If Andy Burnham from the center-left Labour Party wins, there’s a strong chance he will replace embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer as leader of both party and country. He's up against Reform UK, a hard-right party hoping to prove that this longtime Labour stronghold is fertile ground for its anti-immigration message, with potentially seismic consequences for British democracy.

This district has elected Labour lawmakers for 120 years, but Burnham is not a shoo-in. Reform, led by the veteran anti-immigration politician Nigel Farage, won 24 of the 25 council seats up for grabs in local elections in this area last month.

The man accused of killing a top Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband is due to change plea

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The man charged in the political assassinations of the top Democrat in the Minnesota House and her husband, as well as the attempted murders of a state senator and his wife, is due to appear in federal court Thursday to change his not-guilty plea, after federal prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty against him.

The U.S. attorney's office in Minneapolis notified the court Wednesday that the Justice Department would not seek the death penalty against Vance Boelter in accordance with a proposed plea agreement. Boelter’s attorneys did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The court filing did not detail the terms of the plea agreement.

Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, were shot by a man who came to their doors in the early hours of June 14, 2025, disguised as a police officer and driving a fake squad car. The Hortmans’ golden retriever was so gravely injured that he had to be euthanized.

Boelter, 58, was captured near his home in rural Green Isle late the next day after what prosecutors have called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history. He faces federal and state murder, attempted murder and other charges. His state case has been on hold pending the resolution of his federal charges.

Minnesota abolished capital punishment in 1911 and has never had a federal death penalty case. Daniel Borgertpoepping, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, said the federal plea deal would not affect Boelter’s state charges.

FISA spy program at risk over Trump's pick of Pulte for director of national intelligence

WASHINGTON (AP) — A rare lapse in a law that allows the U.S. to gather intelligence abroad is growing more likely after President Donald Trump resisted calls from Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to immediately name a permanent head of the nation's intelligence agencies.

Trump has doubled down on his temporary pick for director of national intelligence, federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte, even though he has little experience for the job. Democrats say they won't support the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, unless the president withdraws Pulte's appointment and nominates a permanent replacement.

The House will try early Thursday to approve a short-term FISA extension, but passage is unlikely. The Senate may follow suit, hoping to prevent what could be an unprecedented lapse in the surveillance tool.

The impasse could soon result in limitations on what intelligence the U.S. government can collect abroad just as World Cup games begin in cities around the country and ahead of celebrations for the nation’s 250th anniversary. The law expires on Friday at midnight.

“We can’t let them extort us,” Trump said of Democrats.

Judge considers arguments in challenge to New Mexico's universal childcare program

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge is scheduled Thursday to consider arguments in a challenge to the state's fledgling universal childcare program, an ambitious and closely watched effort to eliminate daycare costs for all working families.

A lawsuit brought by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Duke Rodriguez and other plaintiffs challenges the process used by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's administration to eliminate an income cap and co-pays for childcare assistance before the Legislature had a chance to weigh in or approve funding.

“This is executive overreach. The program was launched unlawfully,” said Rodriguez, who lost his party’s nomination in New Mexico’s recent primary.

The state’s childcare agency disputes that, arguing in court filings that lawmakers have since “expressly authorized” and funded the expansion, rendering the lawsuit moot. Lujan Grisham signed legislation in February enshrining the program into law provided state finances remain healthy.

District Judge Elaine Lujan could issue a ruling Thursday on whether the lawsuit can proceed. A potential pause to the program would put thousands of New Mexican families back on the hook for daycare payments and create a headache for businesses.

World shares are mixed after another sell-off of AI stocks on Wall St, while oil prices ease

World shares were mixed on Thursday following another sell-off of artificial-intelligence stocks that dragged the U.S. market sharply lower.

Oil prices fell after rising earlier as the U.S. launched a second round of airstrikes against Iran.

In early European trading, Germany's DAX was nearly unchanged at 24,188.88 and the CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.4% to 8,192.55. The FTSE 100 in London added 0.5% to 10,307.39.

The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.8%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7%.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 edged up less than 0.1% to 64,217.27 after falling earlier in the day, while the Kospi in South Korea gained 0.4% to 7,763.95.

Trump has a new, surprising take on the higher cost of living: 'I love the inflation'

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday showed how he had learned to stop worrying about inflation and simply, in his own words, “love” it.

Asked about the new report that the consumer price index in May had jumped 4.2% over the last year, the president took a surprisingly optimistic tack with the challenging news. Trump didn't dismiss the affordability issue as a “hoax” that was started by Democrats, as he has done previously. Nor did he claim that he was bringing down the cost of living.

Instead, after the government said that inflation spiked to the highest level since April 2023, Trump praised the numbers.

“You know what I really love?" Trump said. "I love the inflation.”

It was an unexpected take given that voters ahead of the November midterm elections have ranked the economy as a top concern — and have given Trump low marks on that issue. Within minutes of his on-camera comment, Democrats quickly rushed to promote it on social media.

Police blast water cannons at Belfast protesters as unrest flares again after stabbing

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Police blasted water cannons Wednesday at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street.

Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed sidewalks with sledgehammers to toss at riot police. In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled picket fence to take cover on the street.

The clashes with police came several hours after a 30-year-old man from Sudan appeared in a Belfast court charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man seriously injured and triggered anti-immigrant violence.

Hadi Alodid, 30, was ordered held in jail after appearing by video in Belfast Magistrates’ Court, where a detective said he blinded Stephen Ogilvie in the left eye during the knife attack. He was also charged with possessing a knife and threatening to kill a radiographer while being treated for a hand injury after the assault.

When police arrived at the crime scene, they found Alodid on the man, armed with a kitchen knife, the detective said. Alodid later told hospital staff: “I’ve killed someone, I don’t know if they are dead,” and said, “I will kill you."