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

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was considered one of the most powerful figures in the country since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war. Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani was the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij.

Both men were key to Iran’s violent crackdown on protests in January that challenged the theocracy’s 47-year rule.

Iran, which confirmed both killings, fired salvos of missiles and drones at its Gulf Arab neighbors and Israel.

Dubai, a major transit hub for international travel, briefly shut its airspace, the second disruption to flights in the city in as many days as the war showed no signs of abating.

Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump's Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war.

“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent said in a statement posted on social media, making claims President Donald Trump has denied.

Kent, a former Green Beret and political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists, was confirmed last July on a 52-44 vote. As head of the National Counterterrorism Center, he was in charge of an agency tasked with analyzing and detecting terrorist threats.

His resignation demonstrates that the unease about the war within Trump's base extends to at least one senior member of his Republican administration.

The leadership change comes at a time of heightened concern about terrorism following several recent violent attacks in the U.S.

Trump postpones his China trip to focus on the war in Iran

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is delaying a diplomatic trip to China that had been planned for months but began to unravel as he pressured Beijing and other world powers to use their military might to protect the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said Tuesday while meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in the Oval Office that he would be going to China in five or six weeks’ time instead of at the end of the month. He said he would be “resetting” his visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We’re working with China — they were fine with it," Trump said. “I look forward to seeing President Xi. He looks forward to seeing me, I think.”

Trump’s visit to China is seen as an opportunity to build on a fragile trade truce between the two superpowers, but it has become tangled in his effort to find an endgame to the war in Iran. Soon after pressing China and other nations to send warships to secure access to Middle Eastern oil over the weekend, Trump indicated his travel plans depended on Beijing's response, though he added Tuesday that the U.S. didn't need help from the allies who rebuffed his request.

In a Sunday interview with the Financial Times, Trump said he wanted to know whether Beijing would help secure the strait before he departed for the late-March summit. On Monday, he told reporters that he had requested a delay of about a month because of the demands of the war.

Illinois voters pick a new generation of Democrats after near-record retirements

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois voters are deciding primaries Tuesday for six open U.S. House and Senate seats that will spur a new generation of leadership in the state’s heavily Democratic congressional delegation.

The retirement of longtime Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, has triggered a competitive campaign, drawing as candidates two sitting House members and the lieutenant governor, among others. Sharp elbows and furious fundraising have marked the race, which also is a test of the influence of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire whose name is floated as a 2028 presidential contender.

A spate of House retirements has led to open seats with crowded contests across the Chicago area. The stakes are high, with most primary winners in the Democratic stronghold expected to win in November.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and PACs supporting the cryptocurrency and AI industries also have spent big on several of the contests.

Ten Democrats and six Republicans are running after Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, announced his retirement after five terms.

Republicans are launching a voting bill debate that could last days or even weeks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans launched an unprecedented effort on Tuesday to hold the Senate floor and talk for days about a bill that they know won't pass — an attempt to capture public attention on legislation requiring stricter voter registration rules as President Donald Trump pressures Congress to act before November’s midterm elections.

The talkathon could last a week or longer, potentially through the weekend, as Senate Majority Leader John Thune tries to navigate Trump’s insistence on the issue and Democrats’ united opposition. Trump has urged Thune to scrap the legislative filibuster, which triggers a 60-vote threshold in the 100-member Senate, or find another workaround to pass the bill, but Thune has repeatedly said he doesn’t have the votes to do that.

Instead, Republicans intend to make a long, noisy show of support for the legislation, which would require Americans to prove they are U.S. citizens before they register to vote and to show identification at the polls, among other things. It's a risky strategy, with no guarantee it will be enough for Trump, who has said he won’t sign other bills until the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — also known as the SAVE America Act or the SAVE Act — is passed.

The floor debate is expected to eventually end with a failed vote. Republicans need 60 votes to advance the bill to a final vote, but they hold 53 seats, and all 45 Democrats and both independents, who caucus with the Democrats, oppose it.

The debate will “put Democrats on the record,” Thune said. He added that “how it ends remains to be seen."

What to know about the deepening economic and political turmoil in Cuba

Cuba's widening economic turmoil along with its growing political tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump have paralyzed much of the island and raised uncertainty about what's next.

The country was plunged into darkness this week by a blackout — the third big failure of its power grid since December — opening the door for Trump to suggest that he might have the “honor of taking Cuba."

“I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it,” Trump said on Monday.

Cuba is struggling under the weight of an U.S. energy blockade that has halted oil shipments to the island over the past three months.

Many of the nation's 11 million residents struggle to keep food from spoiling. Hospitals have canceled surgeries. The leading university has reduced classes due to the power outages and transportation shutdowns.

Attorney General Pam Bondi subpoenaed to answer questions from Congress about the Epstein files

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi was subpoenaed Tuesday to answer questions from Congress about the Justice Department's sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and the agency's handling of millions of files related to the disgraced financier.

Bondi was ordered to appear for a deposition on April 14 by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform after a vote earlier this month that was supported by five Republicans.

The Justice Department's failure to fend off the subpoena from the Republican-led committee underscores widespread discontent among President Donald Trump's own base over Bondi's management of the review and release of a trove of documents from the criminal investigation into Epstein.

“The Committee has questions regarding the Department of Justice’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates and its compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman, said in a letter to Bondi.

“As Attorney General, you are directly responsible for overseeing the Department’s collection, review, and determinations regarding the release of files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and the Committee therefore believes that you possess valuable insight into these efforts,” he wrote.

Flight cancellations and delays continue after US storms dump snow in the Midwest and head east

ATLANTA (AP) — Travel disruptions continued Tuesday in the U.S. as airlines worked to recover from a powerful storm system that had already snarled flight schedules a day earlier.

Carriers canceled more than 1,000 U.S. flights on Tuesday and delayed about 4,200 others, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. The disruptions were most severe at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, with over 200 flights canceled and roughly 450 delayed.

The disruptions follow a chaotic Monday for air travel, triggered by powerful storms that dumped snow by the foot in the Midwest and swept through the eastern half of the country, leading to thousands of cancellations at major hubs, including in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. Gusts approached 50 mph (80 kph) in parts of New York, the National Weather Service said.

Kelly Price, who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, said her Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until early Monday.

“By that time, the only place for us to sleep was the airport floor. So we’re all tired and frustrated,” she said, adding that the soonest flight she and her family could book doesn’t leave until Tuesday afternoon.

Gunman killed and one person hospitalized after a shooting at a Georgia VA clinic, police say

JASPER, Ga. (AP) — There was a shooting Tuesday at a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in a small town at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains in Georgia, and the gunman was shot and killed, police said.

One person was airlifted to a hospital after Jasper police responded to the scene around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the city said in a statement on its Facebook page. Outside the VA clinic, the officers confronted the gunman, who was shot and killed, authorities said.

The gunman who was killed is from the Jasper area, Jasper Police Chief Matt Dawkins told reporters at the scene. But details about him were not immediately released.

“We don’t know what led up to it,” Dawkins said.

Officers had responded to a report of shots fired at the clinic, the chief said. The suspect was shot outside the clinic, he said.

Vatican appeals court declares mistrial in the 'trial of the century' against a cardinal

ROME (AP) — The Vatican appeals tribunal declared a mistrial Tuesday in the Holy See’s big “trial of the century,” a stunning blow to both Pope Francis’ legacy and Vatican prosecutors who had put a cardinal and several other people on trial over alleged financial crimes.

In a 16-page ruling, the appeals court ruled that Francis and Vatican prosecutors both made procedural errors that nullified the original indictment against Cardinal Angelo Becciu and the others and required a new trial. The court set a June 22 as the date for the new trial to begin.

Defense lawyers said such a ruling was significant if not historic, since it amounted to a Vatican court declaring that an act of the pope had no effect.

The ruling was a win for the defense and a huge setback to Vatican prosecutors, who have been scrambling to salvage their case. The prosecution and 2023 convictions against Becciu and others had been held up by the Vatican and late pope as evidence of his willingness to crack down on financial misconduct in the Holy See.

Becciu's lawyers said the ruling showed they were right in arguing that the defense was put at an unfair disadvantage from the start.