BERLIN (AP) — Wolfsburg moved a step closer to Bundesliga relegation on Saturday with an ill-tempered 2-1 loss at home to Hamburger SV that ended with rival players fighting in an on-field melee.
Masked Wolfsburg fans threw flares on the pitch sending black smoke billowing behind one of the goals to illustrate their frustrations with the team’s predicament after its eighth game without a win left it 17th in the 18-team division.
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Cologne's Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, left, comforts fouled Dortmund's Maximilian Beier, before he gets the red card during a German Bundesliga soccer match between 1.FC Koeln and Borussia Dortmund in Cologne, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Dortmund's Maximilian Beier, right, is celebrated by Dortmund's Felix Nmecha after scoring the second goal during a German Bundesliga soccer match between 1.FC Koeln and Borussia Dortmund in Cologne, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Wolfsburg's Dzenan Pejcinovic, right, and Hamburger's Luka Vuskovic battle for the ball during their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
Wolfsburg's Christian Eriksen, right, and Hamburger's Daniel Elfadli battle for the ball during their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
Wolfsburg fans throw flares onto the pitch following the German Bundesliga soccer match between Hamburger and Wolfsburg in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
An altercation between Hamburger and Wolfsburg players following their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
An altercation between Hamburger and Wolfsburg players following their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
Both teams’ substitutes and team officials rushed onto the field after the final whistle with Wolfsburg midfielder Maximilian Arnold seemingly reacting angrily after being provoked by Hamburg rivals.
Referee Florian Exner's whistles failed to stop the melee. He showed Wolfsburg reserve goalkeeper Marius Müller a red card.
“It's not nice to be in the locker room now,” Arnold said. “It's absolutely not a good time. Everyone at Wolfsburg is completely frustrated. We imagined it differently today. We put everything into it, but luck isn't on our side at the moment.”
Christian Eriksen scored a penalty for Wolfsburg but his team conceded two and Hamburg converted both to move nine points above the home team and in good position to survive its first season back in the top division.
It’s likely to have been Daniel Bauer’s last game as Wolfsburg coach with both Dieter Hecking and Felix Magath touted with possible returns to lead the Volkswagen-backed club to safety. Bauer’s successor would be the team’s third coach of the season.
Wolfsburg fans displayed a banner before the game saying it was the last chance for the team, and that they were behind the players. Afterward, there was a banner that said, “Chance wasted, support withdrawn.”
Nine rounds remain after this weekend.
“We have nine games left, we'll give them our all, and I hope from next week they go in a new direction,” Arnold said. “We will only manage it together. I understand the frustration and disappointment. ... I don’t think anyone will sleep tonight because it hurts so much. Still, you have to get up again tomorrow. That’s life, you always get new chances.”
Wolfsburg next faces third-place Hoffenheim, then relegation-rival Werder Bremen, and Bayer Leverkusen.
Second-place Borussia Dortmund held on to win 2-1 at 10-man Cologne and stay 11 points behind league leader Bayern Munich.
Bayern took another step toward its 13th title in 14 years on Friday with a 4-1 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Serhou Guirassy stretched for Dortmund's opener in the 16th minute and Maximilian Beier scored on the hour-mark at Cologne, which had Jahmai Simpson-Pusey sent off before the break for catching Beier's heel with his studs.
Simpson-Pusey apologized to the stricken player after he was shown a yellow card, then to the Cologne fans when it was overturned for red after a VAR review.
Jakub Kaminski scored Cologne's consolation in the 88th. His team should arguably have had a penalty for handball when the ball hit Yan Couto's wrist in stoppage time, but there was no VAR intervention.
“I have no understanding for that, how that wasn't spotted,” Cologne sporting director Thomas Kessler said.
“It could have been whistled,” Dortmund counterpart Lars Ricken agreed.
Alexander Prass scored twice and Hoffenheim defeated last-place Heidenheim 4-2 away to consolidate third.
Leverkusen was on course to move fourth – the last place for Champions League qualification – when it was leading 3-2 against Freiburg and qualification rivals Stuttgart and Leipzig were both losing.
Then Matthias Ginter scored late for Freiburg to draw 3-3, Stuttgart drew 2-2 in Mainz, and Yan Diomande led Leipzig to a 2-1 home win over Augsburg.
Stuttgart stayed fourth with 47 points, ahead of Leipzig on goal difference, with Leverkusen three points behind in sixth.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Cologne's Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, left, comforts fouled Dortmund's Maximilian Beier, before he gets the red card during a German Bundesliga soccer match between 1.FC Koeln and Borussia Dortmund in Cologne, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Dortmund's Maximilian Beier, right, is celebrated by Dortmund's Felix Nmecha after scoring the second goal during a German Bundesliga soccer match between 1.FC Koeln and Borussia Dortmund in Cologne, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Wolfsburg's Dzenan Pejcinovic, right, and Hamburger's Luka Vuskovic battle for the ball during their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
Wolfsburg's Christian Eriksen, right, and Hamburger's Daniel Elfadli battle for the ball during their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
Wolfsburg fans throw flares onto the pitch following the German Bundesliga soccer match between Hamburger and Wolfsburg in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
An altercation between Hamburger and Wolfsburg players following their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
An altercation between Hamburger and Wolfsburg players following their German Bundesliga soccer match in Wolfsburg, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Andreas Gora/dpa via AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump warned in a Truth Social post that more Iranian officials will be targets, saying, “Today Iran will be hit very hard!,” while noting an apology by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the day to neighboring nations over Tehran’s attacks.
Gulf countries say they have intercepted more ballistic missiles and drones launched from Iran.
Here is the latest:
Mohammed Shia al-Sudani called an attack launched on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Saturday a “terrorist act” carried out by “rogue groups” and said he had issued orders to military and security agencies to pursue those responsible.
Iraqi security earlier said that a missile had landed on the helicopter landing pad in the U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad. There were no casualties reported. An embassy spokesperson declined to comment. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government offices and diplomatic missions has been attacked in the past, but this was the first reported strike to land in the week since Israel and the U.S. began striking Tehran, triggering a war in the Middle East.
Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched dozens of attacks on U.S. military bases and other facilities in Iraq since then. They have also struck bases of Iranian Kurdish dissident groups with operations in northern Iraq.
Hakan Fidan said he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio who said a scheme for Iranian Kurdish forces based in northern Iraq to attack Iran was “not their intention.”
Speaking as a news conference in Istanbul, Fidan said Rubio’s comments came in a recent phone call. Instead the minister accused Israel of using Kurdish groups as “a proxy” in the region.
Strategies that “aim to create ethnic rivalry or an ethnic conflict in Iran would be something we oppose because it would be the most dangerous scenario,” Fidan said, adding that Turkey had been talking to Kurdish leaders to prevent such a “historic mistake.”
He refused to be drawn on efforts to mediate between Iran and the U.S. except to say Turkey had been involved in “intense diplomatic traffic” to produce a “formula to end this war.”
Massive plumes of flames lit up the sky in Tehran on Saturday night after the Iranian state news agency said that an oil storage facility was targeted in latest round of strikes. AP video showed the horizon glowing, then pillars of flame and billowing smoke.
It is among the first times a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the targets of the latest strike, but said Israel had recently launched another round of strikes in Tehran. Iran state media in response threatened to hit oil refineries in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
Residents of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdish region, heard explosions and the sound of air defenses intercepting incoming missiles or drones Saturday evening.
Three Iraqi security officials said that a missile had landed on the helicopter landing pad in U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. An embassy spokesperson declined to comment. There were no reports of casualties.
Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government offices and diplomatic missions has been attacked in the past, but this was the first reported strike to land in the week since Israel and the U.S. began striking Tehran, triggering a war in the Middle East.
Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched dozens of attacks on U.S. military bases and other facilities in Iraq since then. They have also struck bases of Iranian Kurdish dissident groups with operations in northern Iraq.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
By Qassim Abdul- Zahra
Spain has evacuated its embassy in Iran, the country’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares posted on X Sunday evening.
“The ambassador and essential personnel who had stayed in Tehran have just crossed the border with Azerbaijan and are safe,” Albares wrote.
The rest of Spanish embassies in the region are still functioning and answering emergency calls, he added.
“The safety of our citizens and of the Spanish foreign service is my priority,” Albares wrote.
Top Iranian security official Ali Larijani says he will address the people of Iran “in a few hours.”
The statement was posted on Telegram and reported by state media. The exact time is not immediately clear.
Several airstrikes have shaken neighborhoods in Tehran’s east and southwest. Israel’s military has confirmed a new wave of strikes.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said at least 4,300 people stranded in the United Arab Emirates have been evacuated to France in recent days, with additional flights scheduled in the coming days.
Barrot told France 5 national television Saturday that 800 people returned on planes chartered by the French government to transport vulnerable passengers requiring special assistance. About 3,500 others were able to take commercial flights to Paris, he said.
Six commercial flights to Paris per day are scheduled for Sunday and Monday, he added.
Barrot said a flight organized by the French government is also expected to depart Sunday from Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.
Some 400,000 French citizens live in the Middle East, including many dual citizens and permanent residents, according to the government. France began evacuation flights earlier this week.
The United Arab Emirates’ Dubai media office said late Saturday that debris from an aerial interception fell onto a vehicle in the Barsha area and killed an “Asian driver.”
This brings the number of people killed in the UAE since the war began to four. Authorities have said all were foreign nationals.
The Israeli military says Iran has launched more missiles toward Israel.
It has ordered residents across the country, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to seek cover in shelters.
Top hard-liner Iranian officials are casting doubt on President Masoud Pezeshkian’s comments that Iran might rein in attacks against regional countries.
Iran’s influential judiciary chief suggested on Saturday that its war strategy will not change.
“The geography of some countries in the region—both overtly and covertly—is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue,” Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei posted on X.
A couple hours later, another top hard-liner who is parliamentary speaker echoed these comments. “As long as the presence of U.S. bases in the region continue, the countries will not enjoy peace,” said Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. He added that Iranian officials were “united on this principle.”
Both comments followed on an earlier post on X from a firebrand cleric and lawmaker. Hamid Rasaee condemned the Iranian president’s earlier comments aired on state television as “weak” and “unacceptable”. He called on some top officials to clarify their own position.
Iran has shut down global internet access but its top officials continue to access X and other social media.
DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates’ Dubai Media office said Saturday that falling shrapnel from interception of projectiles from Iran caused a minor damage to the facade of a tower in Dubai Marina, an area with many luxury high rises. There were no injuries reported.
Sirens have sounded several times across the UAE on Saturday.
The number of people killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Monday has risen to 294, with another 1,023 wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
It was not clear how many of them were civilians. Tens of thousands more have been displaced.
After the attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iran triggered a new war in the Middle East, Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel Monday for the first time in over a year, and Israel has retaliated with bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The United Arab Emirates said it was intercepting another round of missile and drone threats from Iran.
President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said that the UAE is in a time of war as he visited five civilians who were wounded in strikes against the Gulf country on Friday.
He also had a clear message for the country’s foes in a statement released Saturday by the country’s media office. “The UAE has thick skin and bitter flesh – we are no easy prey,” said Sheikh Mohammed.
Earlier Saturday, the UAE’s Defense Ministry said that it had intercepted hundreds of missiles and drones since the war started last week. Three residents were killed last week and 112 have been wounded since the beginning of the war.
The island Kingdom’s Interior Ministry said Saturday evening that Iranian missiles caused a fire and other damage to a house and several surrounding buildings in the country’s capital of Manama.
It was not clear if an Iranian missile hit the country or the damage was a result of interception efforts.
This is the first material damage the country reports Saturday, but sirens have sounded at least seven times.
The Israeli military issued an urgent, renewed evacuation warning Saturday for residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, urging those remaining in the area to leave immediately.
The warning, covering an area which had previously received evacuation warnings in the past few days, appeared to be directed at those who have not yet left ahead of what could be renewed Israeli strikes in the area.
Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee told residents they would be notified by the military when it is considered safe to return to their homes.
Israel’s military said over the weekend it has struck more than 170 targets associated with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Israeli military says two soldiers have been moderately wounded by anti-tank fire in southern Lebanon.
Israel has been battling Hezbollah militants in the area.
Israel’s airport authority says some 5,268 people are expected to return to the country on Saturday on special flights repatriating Israelis stranded abroad.
That would bring the number of Israelis returning to Israel to nearly 15,000 people since the flights began on Thursday.
Israel’s skies have been mostly closed since the war broke out a week ago. There have been very limited repatriation flights, including through the U.S. state department, in the past two days. Limited commercial flights of Israeli companies offering rescue flights to Greece and Cyprus will resume on Sunday, the airports authority said.
Israel’s overland borders have remained open. Almost 19,000 people have entered Israel and 24,700 people have exited Israel via its land crossings since the war began last week.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said one of the country’s two flagship aircraft carriers has been placed on advanced preparedness, stoking speculation that it may be deployed to the Middle East.
Following reports that an aircraft carrier was being prepared in response to the crisis in the Middle East, the ministry said it is “reducing the time it would take” for HMS Prince of Wales to set sail for any deployment.
“HMS Prince of Wales has always been on very high readiness and we are increasing the preparedness of the carrier,” it said in a statement.
A university student who lives in western Tehran has described deepening fear in the capital as strikes intensify.
Tehran is under severe bombardment, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Every moment without any warning sirens or any announcement some part of the city is under attack and many buildings have broken glass, he added.
Even residents in parts of the city far from clear government and military targets are living in fear, he said.
By Amir-Hussein Radjy
Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates all reported they intercepted missiles and drones on Saturday evening from Iran. The attacks come eight hours after Iranian president apologized Saturday for attacks on “neighboring countries.”
The attacks underlined the limited powers exercised by the theocracy’s leaders over the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls the ballistic missiles targeting Israel and other countries. It answered only to Khamenei and now appears to be picking its own targets.
The UAE’s Defense Ministry said that it was responding to intercept missiles and drones launched toward the country, as Qatar’s Defense Ministry also said that it intercepted a missile attack. Meanwhile, sirens went off in the island kingdom of Bahrain for the seventh time on Saturday.
The United Arab Emirates says it is being attacked by Iran.
The Defense Ministry says air defense systems were intercepting missiles and drones.
The Israeli military said Saturday that it struck a Tehran airport used to help transport weapons to militant groups that Iran supported across the Middle East.
The military said the Mehrabad Airport was used to transfer weapons and cash to militant groups, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel said it destroyed 16 aircrafts that were used for transporting weapons as part of a broad wave of strikes against Tehran overnight. The strike also destroyed several Iranian fighter jets.
There was no immediate acknowledgement of the strike on Iran’s state media.
Trump spoke during an event on Florida about the six U.S. troops who were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait. Trump is set to fly to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware later Saturday, to be on hand for the dignified transfer of the troops.
Trump called it a “very sad situation to greet the families of the heroes who are coming home from Iran and coming home in a different manner than they thought they’d be coming home.” He added the troops are “great heroes in our country.”
Trump said that “when it comes to war,” there will be U.S. troop deaths, but added “we’re going to keep it to a minimum.”
Kuwait says it is reducing oil production as a “precautionary” measure due to the war in the Middle East.
The Kuwait Petroleum Cooperation blamed Iran’s attacks on the country as well as threats to the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil trade passes.
The Kuwaiti statement did not say how much it was reducing output, but Saturday’s announcement threatened to further jolt global energy markets.
Kuwait is one of the world’s largest oil producers. The week-old war has disrupted the flow of oil out of the Gulf and sent oil prices surging.
State-run Anadolu news agency reported the Defense Ministry is considering deploying F-16 aircraft “to ensure the security” of the ethnic Turkish part of the island.
A British air base on Cyprus’ southern coastline was hit by a Shahed drone on Sunday.
Citing a ministry statement, Anadolu said the move would be under “phased plans” currently being discussed.
Ankara maintains some 30,000 troops in northern Cyprus, which broke away from the Greek south in 1974. Turkey is the only country to recognize the northern administration.
The State Department says more than 28,000 Americans have returned to the United States from the Middle East since the start of the Iran war seven days ago.
The vast majority of those have made their way home without government assistance on commercial flights, although the department said Saturday it had organized more than a dozen charter flights that had evacuated several thousand Americans.
It said it had offered direct assistance - in the form of safety and security information as well as providing charter options - to more than 16,000 U.S. citizens who have reached out for help.
The family of an Israeli soldier who has been missing for more than 40 years urged Israel’s leaders not to endanger the lives of Israeli soldiers in their search to bring home his body.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that troops had searched in Lebanon overnight for the body of Ron Arad, a pilot shot down over Lebanon in 1986.
The clashes killed more than 41 people in Lebanon, the Health Ministry said.
“Our desire to know what happened to Ron stops the moment it endangers Israeli soldiers,” his wife Tami, wrote on Facebook, noting that the family has said this multiple times through the years. “For 40 years we have lived with the fact that Ron is missing, and we want to know what happened to Ron, but not at any price. The sanctity of life is above any closing of the circle of certainty for us.”
The military does not believe Arad is alive.
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Corrects that Tami is the missing soldier’s wife, not daughter
President Donald Trump is gathering with Latin American leaders on Saturday at his Miami-area golf club as his administration looks to demonstrate that it is still committed to sharpening U.S. foreign policy focus on the Western Hemisphere even as it deals with five-alarm crises around the globe.
The gathering, which the White House is calling the “Shield of the Americas” summit, comes just two months after Trump ordered an audacious U.S. military operation to capture Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolás Maduro, and whisk him and his wife to the United States to face drug conspiracy charges.
Looming even larger is Trump’s decision to join with Israel to launch a war on Iran one week ago, a conflict that has left hundreds dead, convulsed global markets and unsettled the broader Middle East.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there were “still things that can be done” to promote dialogue between the U.S. and Iran, according to his office’s account of a phone call with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Kuwait intercepted a drone attacking the Gulf country on Saturday.
The National Guard, which assists the country’s military in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones, made the announcement in a social media post.
No casualties were reported.
The area witnessed intense clashes and airstrikes overnight after an Israeli force landed there and clashed with local gunmen.
The Lebanese army said the dead included three Lebanese troops.
The Israeli force was looking for information about Israeli navigator Ron Arad who went missing after his fighter jet crashed in Lebanon 40 years ago.
The Israeli military said it did not find Arad’s remains.
Trump made the comments on his Truth Social website, noting an apology by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the day to neighboring nations over Tehran’s attacks.
“Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Plumes of smoke rise as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
