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

Trump says pilots are fine after US helicopter crashes near Strait of Hormuz

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. Army helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, but President Donald Trump said the two crew members aboard were not injured in the incident near the strategic waterway that Iran has effectively closed during the war.

What caused the crash remained unclear Tuesday morning in the Middle East, which was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the straining ceasefire in the Iran war. Iranian state television reported Tuesday the Israeli attacks killed at least two members of the country’s air defense units.

Since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran on Feb. 28, the war has shaken the global economy, driven up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Officials have been unable to turn the April ceasefire into a deal to permanently end the conflict, particularly as Israel intensifies and expands its military campaign in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.

Trump, speaking to journalists at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night, acknowledged the crash.

“The pilots are fine. Yeah,” Trump said. “Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine.”

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What to watch in Tuesday’s primaries as Graham Platner tries to clinch Senate nomination in Maine

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters across Maine, Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota head to the polls Tuesday for another day of primary elections in America, but much of the political world will be focused on Maine’s high-stakes U.S. Senate contest.

The results are not in question. Neither Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins nor Democratic challenger Graham Platner faces serious opposition for their party’s nomination. And yet Tuesday marks an especially significant moment for Platner, the embattled veteran and oyster farmer, who is fighting to rebuild his credibility in a campaign rocked by controversy.

Elsewhere, President Donald Trump’s clout within his party will be tested anew in states like South Carolina and Nevada, where he’s endorsed his favored candidates. Democrats hope to build momentum in Nevada in their broader push to reclaim key governor’s seats.

Powerful family ties will also be in the spotlight in Maine and South Carolina, where candidates with political pedigrees are running for office.

Here’s what we’re watching Tuesday.

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Progressive Nithya Raman advances to November runoff against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Progressive city council member Nithya Raman has advanced to a November runoff against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, setting up an unexpected matchup between two Democrats and former political allies to run the struggling city of nearly 4 million.

The outcome means Spencer Pratt, a Republican and former reality television personality from “The Hills,” is out of the running. His candidacy had drawn national attention because of his celebrity and willingness to challenge liberal governance in a city dominated by Democrats, but the buzz did not translate into enough votes to make the runoff.

Raman made a last-minute entry into the race, after she had endorsed Bass for reelection. She was elected to the council with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the election will test whether voters in the heavily Democratic city want to move further to the political left to address long-running problems of homelessness, buckled streets and sidewalks and climbing rent and home prices.

The race also has historical markers. Bass is the first Black woman to hold the post, and Raman could be the first South Asian woman in the job.

“If you’re as frustrated by the broken status quo as I am, I hope you’ll join our movement to build a city that works for everyone,” Raman said in a statement. “For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections. Meanwhile, working people pay the price in higher rents, depleted services and a city that has stopped working for them.”

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32,000 people displaced by the Philippine earthquake that killed at least 37

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines (AP) — Rescuers searched ruined buildings in the southern Philippines on Tuesday to ensure no one was still trapped a day after one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the country in a half-century killed at least 37 people and displaced more than 32,000.

Only four people were considered missing on official records in the southern provinces near where the 7.8 magnitude quake struck Monday morning, but the Office of Civil Defense acknowledged several collapsed and heavily damaged buildings must be thoroughly inspected for possible survivors or casualties.

The earthquake centered off Mindanao, the second most populous Philippine island, injured nearly 500 people and displaced more than 32,000, most of whom fled to emergency shelters.

Many people who left their homes feared a tsunami. Waves up to 1.4-meters (4.6-feet) above tide level were measured in the Philippines, but the only tsunami damage reported was to six shanties on stilts in a coastal village. Smaller waves washed ashore in Indonesia and Palau and as far away as southern Japan.

The earthquake left a trail of destruction, including in General Santos, a lively coastal city of more than 700,000 people known as the country’s tuna capital, where at least 13 people were killed in collapsed buildings and due to falling debris.

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China’s exports jump 19.4% in May from a year earlier, boosted by demand for autos and tech goods

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s exports picked up pace in May, rising 19.4% from a year earlier, its customs agency said Tuesday, as technology-related shipments remained robust despite impacts from the Iran war.

The stronger than expected performance was an improvement from April’s 14.1% year-on-year increase.

Imports in May jumped 27.4%, also at a faster pace compared with April’s 25.3% year-on-year expansion.

Exports to the U.S. in May surged more than 35% from the year before — the strongest pace since early 2021 — after an 11% increase in April.

China’s shipments to the U.S. had fallen sharply for most of the months since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, as shipments to regions like Southeast Asia and Europe surged.

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Congo’s Ebola outbreak rises to 100 deaths out of 550 cases as conflict slows response

BUNIA, Congo (AP) — At least 100 people have died from Ebola less than a month after authorities declared an outbreak of the disease in eastern Congo, authorities said, a grim toll as officials intensify efforts to slow the disease discovered weeks late.

Attacks on health workers from angry residents, skepticism among some locals and armed conflict in hot spots continue to challenge efforts to stop the outbreak declared on May 15, which has been caused by a severe form of Ebola disease.

Out of the 550 cases of the disease confirmed as of Sunday, there have been 101 deaths and 19 recoveries, according to the latest situation report late Monday. The outbreak is concentrated in Congo’s eastern province of Ituri, which accounts for more than 90% of the cases. Cases have also been recorded in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, and has spread across the border to Uganda.

The number of cases in Congo is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed weeks late and the contact tracing coverage rate, which has improved in recent days, is still at 64%.

The latest Ebola disease outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which does not have an approved vaccine or treatment unlike the “Zaire virus,” another name for the Ebola virus, responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.

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Survivors share experiences and lessons from Congo’s 2018 Ebola outbreak

BENI, Congo (AP) — The memories come flooding back whenever Vianney Kambale Kombi hears the word Ebola.

He remembers the pain and fear in his community in the eastern Congo city of Beni during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak, history’s second-biggest with more than 3,400 reported cases and over 2,200 deaths. It was stopped with the aid of vaccines.

Kombi also remembers the broad skepticism over the disease, attacks on health workers and inaction from patients that he blames for the speed in which the disease spread.

“We thought it was witchcraft,” said Kombi. “The community had not accepted that this disease existed and it had not accepted that we could recover from it.”

In Beni, a bustling commercial hub near the borders with Uganda and Rwanda, some fear that a repeat of mistakes made during Congo’s past outbreaks and the lack of an approved vaccine this time around might make the response to the latest outbreak more challenging.

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Pope Leo will tap into the Sagrada Familia’s allure while honoring Catalonia’s holy mountain

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Pope Leo XIV will bridge 1,000 years of church history Wednesday, visiting a medieval monastery on a mountaintop that local Catholics consider sacred and then celebrating Mass at Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia Basilica.

Montserrat, a healthy drive from the city followed by a steep ascent, is dear to many of the Catalan people in northeastern Spain. Annually, 2 million people travel to the complex that includes an 11th-century Benedictine abbey as well as a 16th-century basilica. Its Black Madonna statue, which studies show originally was white but turned dark by centuries of smoke and incense before being painted black, is widely revered.

But for many Catholics watching from afar — and especially non-Catholics — the highlight of the Chicago-born pope’s seven-day trip to Spain will be his evening Mass at the Sagrada Familia — the Basilica of the Holy Family — commemorating the centennial of the death of its architect, Antoni Gaudí. Leo will speak almost exclusively Spanish on the trip, with some comments in Catalan.

The visit illustrates his balancing act of upholding centuries-old religious traditions in a country where faith is waning while reaching a global audience from a basilica that is more a magnet for tourists than believers. Yet the two sites share a connection even some locals don’t know.

The Sagrada Familia fuses the universal language of nature — trees, birds, reptiles, cornucopias of fruit — with scenes from Christ’s life. Beyond that unique aesthetic, its allure stems from allowing visitors to bear witness to a great church’s ongoing construction.

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As US Customs refines its tariff refund system, who gets in to apply is under dispute

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency official is set to testify in federal court Tuesday about the U.S. government’s plans for refunding billions of dollars that importers paid before the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump illegally imposed certain tariffs on goods from most other countries.

Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton said he wanted to hear details that would help him decide whether to order the government to speed up and expand its system for issuing tariff refunds. The Justice Department subsequently appealed an earlier order by Eaton to make all businesses that paid the now-defunct import taxes eligible for refunds plus interest.

The Justice Department argued in a court document that only companies that were parties in any of the more than 2.500 lawsuits that challenged the tariffs were legally entitled to seek refunds.

With the dispute now in the hands of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Tuesday’s hearing may provide more clarity about the next phase of the refund process.

Eaton ordered Customs and Border Protection in March to create a system by which “all importers of record” could apply for their share of the $166 billion CBP estimated it had collected before the Supreme Court struck down the global tariffs.

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A flesh-eating cattle parasite spreads beyond Texas as new screwworm cases are found

Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a resurgent pest that could devastate the nation’s cattle industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds of animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The small dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state.

The dog had not traveled to Mexico or Texas, so authorities were investigating around the property where the pet lived. If they find infected flies, animal inspections in the area will increase, New Mexico State Veterinarian Samantha Holeck said during a virtual news conference Monday.

The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.