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

The tempo of the strikes on Iran was so intense that state television announced the mourning ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the conflict, would be postponed. Millions attended the funeral of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989.

The U.S. and Israel launched the war Saturday, targeting Iran’s leadership, missile arsenal and nuclear program while suggesting that toppling the government is a goal. But the exact aims and timelines have repeatedly shifted, signaling an open-ended conflict.

President Donald Trump praised the U.S. military Wednesday for “doing very well on the war front, to put it mildly.”

Israel also traded fire with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, while Iran fired on Bahrain, Kuwait and Israel. As the conflict spiraled, Turkey said NATO defenses intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran before it entered Turkey’s airspace.

Hegseth says US 'can't stop everything' that Iran fires even as he asserts air dominance

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged on Wednesday that some Iranian air attacks may still hit their targets even as he asserted that U.S. military superiority is quickly giving it control of the Islamic Republic's airspace.

The United States has spared “no expense or capability” to enhance air defense systems to protect American forces and allies in the Middle East, Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in a war that has widened throughout the region.

“This does not mean we can stop everything, but we ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense,” he said.

The acknowledgment that additional drone or missile strikes in the region could cause damage and harm to troops comes as President Donald Trump and top defense leaders have warned that more American casualties were expected in a conflict that began Saturday and could last months. The U.S. and Israeli bombardment intensified, and Iran hit back, on Wednesday, when the Trump administration revealed that a U.S. submarine fired a torpedo that sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean.

U.S. service members “remain in harm’s way, and we must be clear-eyed that the risk is still high,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the news conference with Hegseth.

Senate Republicans vote down legislation to halt Iran war in Congress’ first vote on the conflict

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans voted down an effort Wednesday to halt President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, demonstrating early support for a conflict that has rapidly spread across the Middle East with no clear U.S. exit strategy.

The legislation, known as a war powers resolution, failed on a 47-53 vote tally. The vote fell mostly along party lines, though Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted in favor and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted against.

The war powers resolution gave lawmakers an opportunity to demand congressional approval before any further attacks are carried out. The vote forced them to take a stand on a war shaping the fate of U.S. military members, countless other lives and the future of the region.

Underscoring the gravity of the moment, Democratic senators filled the Senate chamber and sat at their desks as the voting got underway. Typically, senators step into the chamber to cast their vote, then leave.

“Today every senator — every single one — will pick a side," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote. “Do you stand with the American people who are exhausted with forever wars in the Middle East or stand with Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth as they bumble us headfirst into another war?”

US soldiers who died in the Iran war remembered for their service and devotion to their families

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Sgt. Declan Coady had been checking in with his family from Kuwait every hour or two after the U.S. and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, even as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab states that host U.S. armed forces.

When he didn't respond to messages Sunday, “most of us started to wonder,” Coady's father, Andrew, told The Associated Press. “Your gut starts to get a feeling.”

A drone strike at a command center in Kuwait killed 20-year-old Coady of West Des Moines, Iowa, and five other service members of the U.S. Army Reserve who worked in logistics and kept troops supplied with food and equipment.

The other soldiers identified Tuesday by the Pentagon were: Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; and Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska.

U.S. Army base Fort Knox, Kentucky, said in a Facebook post that two additional names would be released once their next of kin has been notified. Their unit, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, is temporarily operating under the 1st Theater Sustainment Command at Fort Knox.

Trump says he'll make endorsement soon in the Texas Senate runoff between Paxton and Cornyn

DALLAS (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he soon will endorse a Republican candidate in the Texas Senate race, warning that the divisive contest “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”

But Trump, a former reality television host, continued to stoke suspense over his decision by not immediately naming his choice, even as Republicans on Capitol Hill pushed him to support four-term Sen. John Cornyn over conservative firebrand Ken Paxton, the state's attorney general.

“IT MUST STOP NOW!” Trump wrote on social media after Cornyn and Paxton advanced on Tuesday to a May 26 runoff for the nomination. “I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair? We must win in November!!!”

Republicans are deeply concerned that the 83-day sprint to the Texas runoff election will be expensive and divisive as the party fights to maintain control of Congress in competitive states across the nation.

Texas, a state Trump carried by 14 percentage points, was not supposed to be among this year's political battlegrounds. But operatives in both parties believe Democrats have a real chance to claim a Senate seat here for the first time in nearly four decades.

What to know about the investigation into Catholic priests in Rhode Island and sexual abuse charges

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A new investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, shows that an estimated 75 priests abused more than 300 children since 1950, with the state's top law enforcement chief warning Wednesday that the scope of the abuse is likely much bigger.

The report was released by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office has been investigating the diocese since 2019.

According to Neronha, the church could be doing more to address child sexual abuse. Yet diocese leaders have pushed back at the conclusions from the report, maintaining there are no “credibly accused clergy in active ministry.”

Here's what to know about the investigation.

The report described church records as “damning,” declaring that the diocese often failed to take the proper steps to protect children from sexual abuse. While clergy abuse has been widely exposed, up until Wednesday's report, the scope of what took place in Rhode Island had largely been unknown.

US issues first commercial construction permit for a nuclear reactor in years to a Wyoming project

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday approved its first construction permit for a commercial nuclear reactor in eight years, one that will allow a Bill Gates-backed company to build a sodium-cooled reactor in western Wyoming.

TerraPower filed for the permit in 2024 and construction is now set to begin within weeks. Completion of the up to $4 billion plant is targeted for 2030, according to TerraPower. Microsoft co-founder Gates, who is eyeing nuclear generation as a power source for the electricity-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence, is a founder of TerraPower and its primary investor.

“We have spent thousands of manpower hours working to achieve this momentous accomplishment,” TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said in a statement.

The TerraPower plant is set to be built near a coal-fired power plant that is being converted to burn natural gas outside Kemmerer, a town of about 2,500 people some 130 miles (210 kilometers) northeast of Salt Lake City.

Gates and his energy company are seeking to develop a next-generation nuclear plant that would “revolutionize” how power is generated. The 345-megawatt reactor is expected to produce up to 500 megawatts at its peak, enough energy for up to 400,000 homes.

Judge rules companies are entitled to refunds for Trump tariffs overturned by the Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that companies that paid tariffs struck down last month by Supreme Court are due refunds.

Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade wrote that “all importers of record’’ were “entitled to benefit’’ from the Supreme Court ruling that struck down sweeping double-digit import taxes President Donald Trump imposed last year under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

The Supreme Court found tariffs that Trump imposed under the emergency powers law were unconstitutional, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.

In his ruling, Eaton wrote that he alone “will hear cases pertaining to the refund of IEEPA duties.’’ The ruling offers some clarity about the tariff refund process, something the Supreme Court did not even mention in its Feb. 20 decision. Trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official, said he expects the government to appeal or “seek a stay to buy more time for U.S. Customs to comply.″

The federal government collected more than $130 billion in the now-defunct tariffs through mid-December and could ultimately be on the hook for refunds worth $175 billion, according to calculations by the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

The sea is higher than we thought and millions more are at risk, study finds

Climate change's rising seas may threaten tens of millions more people than scientists and government planners originally thought because of mistaken research assumptions on how high coastal waters already are, a new study said.

Researchers studied hundreds of scientific studies and hazard assessments, calculating that about 90% of them underestimated baseline coastal water heights by an average of 1 foot (30 centimeters), according to Wednesday's study in the journal Nature. It's a far more frequent problem in the Global South, the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and less so in Europe and along Atlantic coasts.

The cause is a mismatch between the way sea and land altitudes are measured, said study co-author Philip Minderhoud, a hydrogeology professor at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. And he attributed that to a “methodological blind spot” between the different ways those two things are measured.

Each way measures their own areas properly, he said. But where sea meets land, there's a lot of factors that often don't get accounted for when satellites and land-based models are used. Studies that calculate sea level rise impact usually “do not look at the actual measured sea level so they used this zero-meter” figure as a starting point, said lead author Katharina Seeger of the University of Padua in Italy. In some places in the Indo-Pacific, it's close to 3 feet (1 meter), Minderhoud said.

One simple way to understand that is that many studies assume sea levels without waves or currents, when the reality at the water's edge is of oceans constantly roiled by wind, tides, currents, changing temperatures and things like El Niño, said Minderhoud and Seeger.

Lou Holtz, college football staple who coached Notre Dame to 1988 national title, dies at 89

Lou Holtz, the College Football Hall of Fame coach who led Notre Dame to the 1988 national championship and won 249 games over 33 seasons at six schools, has died. He was 89.

Notre Dame announced on Wednesday that Holtz died in Orlando, Florida, surrounded by his family. Spokeswoman Katy Lonergan said a cause of death was not provided by the family.

Holtz became the first and so far only coach to lead six different teams to bowl games during a career in which he compiled a record of 249-132-7. He still ranks 10th all-time in career victories by a Football Bowl Subdivision coach, eighth all-time with 388 games coached.

At Notre Dame, he went 100-30-2 in 11 seasons producing both the third-highest win total in school history and the second-highest loss total.

Holtz won at every stop — except for a brief stint in the NFL.