MADRID (AP) — Lamine Yamal scored early as Barcelona rebounded from its clasico defeat by beating Elche 3-1 at home to regain second place in the Spanish league on Sunday.
Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford also scored for Barcelona, a week after it lost 2-1 at Real Madrid in the first clasico of the season.
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Barcelona's Marcus Rashford celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Ferran Torres shows a message in Spanish reading "29 October 2024, Valencia, always in our memory," as he celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, center, scores his side's opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, right, celebrates with Barcelona's Fermin Lopez after their teammate Ferran Torres scored his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona is five points behind league leader Madrid, which routed Valencia 4-0 at home on Saturday. Barcelona entered the match in third place, one point behind Villarreal, which defeated Rayo Vallecano 4-0 on Saturday.
“I saw many things we did well, but I also saw some we didn’t do well,” Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said. “It was a tough match, but it meant the three points were earned. We have to improve. We are more confident with this victory, it is another step, but we have to continue. I am happy and we have to think positively about the games to come.”
Barcelona next faces Club Brugge on Wednesday in the league phase of the Champions League.
Yamal, criticized by some after a lackluster performance against Madrid, put the hosts ahead with a shot from inside the area in the ninth minute after Alejandro Balde's assist. Torres added to the lead three minutes later after a pass by Fermín López to reach 50 goals with Barcelona.
Torres, a Valencia native, displayed a message on his undershirt honoring the victims of the deadly floods in the Valencia region a year ago. The message said: “Valencia, always in our memory.”
Elche hit back with a goal by Rafa Mir in a 42nd-minute breakaway, but Rashford added to Barcelona's lead with a left-footed shot from a difficult angle in the 61st for his sixth goal of the season at his new club.
Rashford had a 52nd-minute goal disallowed for offside in the buildup, and Mir nearly equalized for the visitors in the 55th with a curling shot that brushed the crossbar with Barcelona goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny beaten. Mir also struck the woodwork with his team down 3-1 in the 68th after a neat save by Szczesny.
Elche, sitting in ninth place, is winless in four consecutive league matches, with three losses.
Barcelona, which had lost three of its previous five matches in all competitions, is still playing at Montjuic stadium while waiting for the proper permits to reopen the renovated Camp Nou.
The loss to Madrid halted a four-game winning streak against its rival.
Playmaker Dani Olmo and striker Robert Lewandowski made their returns from injury for Barcelona, entering the match as second-half substitutes. They hadn't played for the club since early October.
Eighth-placed Alaves scored first-half goals to beat Espanyol 2-1 at home and end a two-match winless run. Lucas Boyé, who scored one of the goals, was sent off with a second yellow card in second-half stoppage time. Sixth-placed Espanyol was coming off three straight wins across all tournaments.
Celta Vigo won its fourth match in a row in all competitions by beating 10-man Levante 2-1 on the road thanks to Miguel Romána's stoppage-time goal. Óscar Mingueza had put the visitors ahead in the 40th and Kevin Arriaga equalized for Levante in the 66th.
Celta moved to 12th place.
Levante — winless in three league matches and coming off elimination in the Copa del Rey — was 16th, just outside the relegation zone.
Antony scored two first-half goals as fifth-placed Real Betis defeated Mallorca 3-0 at home. Ez Abde also scored before the interval. Mallorca is 17th.
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Barcelona's Marcus Rashford celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Ferran Torres shows a message in Spanish reading "29 October 2024, Valencia, always in our memory," as he celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, center, scores his side's opening goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, right, celebrates with Barcelona's Fermin Lopez after their teammate Ferran Torres scored his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Barcelona and Elche CF in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)
U.S. forces on Monday launched an effort to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds have been stuck since the Iran war began.
Two American-flagged merchant ships have “successfully transited” through the critical waterway, the U.S. military said. Separately, the U.S. military denied Iran’s claims that it struck an American Navy vessel southeast of the strait.
Iran handed over its latest proposal for negotiations with the U.S. to mediators in Pakistan, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday. Trump subsequently said he’s “not satisfied” with it, but did not elaborate on the proposal’s apparent shortcomings. The shaky ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has lasted for three weeks.
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As part of its National Defense Strategy announced in January — a sweeping document laying out a vision on everything from deterring China to defending against cyberattacks to disrupting Iran’s nuclear ambitions — the Trump administration said Europe must do more for its own defense.
While “we are and will remain engaged in Europe, we must — and will — prioritize defending the U.S. Homeland and deterring China,” it said.
Among other things, the document noted that Europe’s economic power, while shrinking in relative terms globally, remains significant, and said Germany’s economy alone “dwarfs that of Russia.”
“Fortunately, our NATO allies are substantially more powerful than Russia — it is not even close,” it said, noting a recent commitment among NATO allies to raise national defense spending to 5% of GDP in total, a push led by Trump.
The U.S. European Command, created in 1947 and known as EUCOM, is one of 11 combat commands within the Defense Department, and covers some 50 countries and territories.
In addition to more than 36,000 troops in Germany, Italy hosts more than 12,000 and there’s another 10,000 in the United Kingdom, according to Pentagon numbers from December.
The Pentagon has offered few details about which troops or operations would be affected in the drawdown announced Friday.
The U.S. increased its European deployment after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine four years ago. NATO allies like Germany have expected for over a year that these troops would be the first to leave.
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The event in the East Room will bring together more than 130 small business owners as the president highlights his administration’s policies benefiting them.
“Our nation’s 36 million small businesses now have the confidence to hire, reinvest and expand, unleashing an historic era of sustained growth,” Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler said ahead of the event. “America is open for business again.”
The gathering is meant to mark this year’s National Small Business Week and the owners represent manufacturing, food production, defense, energy and retail businesses, among other areas, according to the White House.
European leaders on Monday said President Trump’s snap decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany came as a surprise but is a fresh sign that Europe must take care of its own security.
The Pentagon announced last week that it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters Saturday that “we’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.”
He offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO, but his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and Trump’s anger over European allies’ reluctance to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East.
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The U.S. stock market is holding tentatively near its record heights Monday, while oil prices climb with uncertainty about when oil tankers can resume crossing the Strait of Hormuz and restore the world’s flow of crude. Dueling claims about a possible Iranian strike on a U.S. Navy vessel in the strait heightened the tensions.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 216 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.1%.
The action was stronger in the oil market, where the price for a barrel of Brent crude climbed 2% to $110.37 and briefly topped $114 during the morning. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to its war with the United States has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide. That in turn has sent the price of Brent soaring from roughly $70 per barrel before the war.
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Rubio will travel to Rome and Vatican City this week in a bid to ease rising tensions between the Trump administration and Pope Leo over U.S. policies, particularly with Iran.
The State Department said Monday that Rubio, a devout Catholic who’s visited Rome and the Vatican at least three times since becoming Trump’s top diplomat, would be in Italy on Thursday and Friday.
“Secretary Rubio will meet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere” the department said. “Meetings with Italian counterparts will be focused on shared security interests and strategic alignment.”
The trip comes as Trump has criticized Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, for his stances on the Middle East and elsewhere and posting social media images likening Trump to Jesus Christ.
The disruption of the waterway has squeezed countries in Europe and Asia that depend on Persian Gulf oil and gas, raising prices far beyond the region.
Trump has promised to bring down gas prices as he faces midterm elections this year.
The U.S. has warned shipping companies they could face sanctions for paying Iran for transit of the strait. It has enacted a naval blockade on Iranian ports since April 13, telling 49 commercial ships to turn back, U.S. Central Command said Sunday. The blockade has deprived Tehran of oil revenue it needs to shore up its ailing economy.
U.S. officials have expressed hope the blockade forces Iran back to the negotiation table.
The U.S. military said Monday that two American-flagged merchant ships had successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz and Navy guided-missile destroyers in the Persian Gulf were helping to restore shipping traffic. It separately denied Iran’s claims to have struck an American Navy vessel.
The announcement came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new initiative to help guide ships through the critical waterway for global energy. Iran has effectively closed the strait since the U.S. and Israel started the war Feb. 28, rattling the global economy.
The U.S.-led Joint Maritime Information Center has advised ships to cross the strait in Oman’s waters, saying it set up an “enhanced security area.” U.S. Central Command didn’t say when the Navy ships arrived or when the merchant vessels departed.
It was unclear whether shipping companies, and their insurers, will feel comfortable taking the risk given that Iran has fired on ships in the waterway and vowed to keep doing so.
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President Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. step off from Marine One upon their arrival on the South Lawn of the White House, Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Donald Trump walks from Marine One to board Air Force One at Ocala International Airport, in Ocala Fla., Friday, May 1, 2026, after speaking at an event in The Villages, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
President Donald Trump steps off from Marine One upon his arrival at the South Lawn of the White House, Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
