SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Spain (AP) — Even popes have travel delays. Lucky for Pope Leo XIV, King Felipe VI offered a way out, and a way home.
Leo's Iberia charter, due to take him back to Rome after a weeklong visit to Spain, was grounded by a technical problem Friday, prompting Spain's king to offer his private jet instead.
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In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media, Pope Leo XIV speaks with King Felipe VI of Spain before deplaning after a technical problem at Tenerife Norte-Los Rodeos International Airport in Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media, Pope Leo XIV is accompanied by King Felipe VI of Spain as he deplanes after a technical problem at Tenerife Norte-Los Rodeos International Airport in Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
Journalists leave the papal flight after takeoff was delayed at Los Rodeos International Airport, at the Canary Islands, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Journalists attend into the papal flight after takeoff was delayed at Los Rodeos International Airport, at the Canary Islands, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media, Pope Leo XIV is accompanied by King Felipe VI of Spain as he deplanes after a technical problem at Tenerife Norte-Los Rodeos International Airport in Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
Felipe escorted Leo to his Falcon on the tarmac at the airport in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. Leo and members of his delegation boarded the plane and took off, more than three hours after he was originally due to leave.
The glitch marked an unusual end to an otherwise successful trip to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands. Leo pressed his migration message and also inaugurated the new tower of the Sagrada Familia basilica.
The Iberia pilot said the engine had failed to start after Leo had boarded. Initial efforts to fix it failed, forcing all passengers to disembark. Iberia said it was sending another plane from Madrid to fetch the Vatican officials and journalists who were not with Leo on the Falcon. The Spanish archipelago is closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula.
It was the first time in decades that a papal flight had experienced a problem so serious that it required the pope to change planes.
Veteran Vatican reporters, some of whom were on the Iberia plane, recalled a few plane-related incidents during the pontificate of St. John Paul II. During a 1986 return trip from India, John Paul’s plane was forced to land in Naples because of a snowstorm in Rome. The passengers and pope took a special train back to Rome.
In 1988 en route to Lesotho, bad weather forced John Paul’s plane to land in South Africa, a country he had excluded from his African trip at the time because of apartheid. He was later driven into the kingdom.
Typically on papal trips, the Italian national carrier ITA Airways brings the pope to his destination and that country’s national carrier brings him home, with ITA sometimes doing the round trip if the voyage is particularly long or to a place that doesn’t have the capacity.
The flights are charters, with the pope, Vatican delegation and security occupying the front of the plane and the 70 or so journalists seated in coach.
Iberia had proudly provided video earlier in the trip of Leo seated in the cockpit, smiling broadly as the plane carried him from Madrid to Barcelona, and then Barcelona to the Canary Islands. In both cases, Spanish military aircraft provided an airborne escort, a sign of respect for visiting dignitaries, and in one clip of the video Leo is seen waving to the escorting pilot.
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media, Pope Leo XIV speaks with King Felipe VI of Spain before deplaning after a technical problem at Tenerife Norte-Los Rodeos International Airport in Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media, Pope Leo XIV is accompanied by King Felipe VI of Spain as he deplanes after a technical problem at Tenerife Norte-Los Rodeos International Airport in Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
Journalists leave the papal flight after takeoff was delayed at Los Rodeos International Airport, at the Canary Islands, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Journalists attend into the papal flight after takeoff was delayed at Los Rodeos International Airport, at the Canary Islands, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
In this handout photo provided by Vatican Media, Pope Leo XIV is accompanied by King Felipe VI of Spain as he deplanes after a technical problem at Tenerife Norte-Los Rodeos International Airport in Tenerife, Spain, Friday, June 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military on Saturday announced its first troop deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, saying two were killed and another was missing in an attack on a base in Jordan.
They were killed Friday as the U.S. and partner forces defended against ballistic missile and drone attacks, a statement said. Four other service members were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and later discharged. The dead were not identified.
Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Minutes earlier, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic. The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, also called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.”
The comments came hours after a negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
Tehran's declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows no end in sight. Now Khamenei warns of “lessons” not only from Iran but its armed proxies in the region, calling them the “Axis of Resistance."
The battle over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the essential waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world's crude oil. The strikes threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert.
The U.S. has violated its commitments under the deal that was signed about a month ago and now Iran is “no longer implementing them,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told state TV.
There was no new word on mediation efforts.
The most significant damage from Iranian strikes on Saturday occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.
The strikes injured several people at the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline. It was the second attack against a desalination plant in two days in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90% of its drinking water.
Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.
Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.
The secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.
The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes hit “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.”
U.S. airstrikes hit an electricity and desalination plant in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state TV reported. IRNA said the Bonji desalination plant was destroyed, cutting off water supplies to about 10,000 people, and that a desalination plant on strategic Qeshm Island inside the strait was damaged.
Overnight strikes damaged two tunnels and a bridge, disrupting one of the main highways toward Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port that sits near the narrowest part of the strait, according to Iran's state-run news agency. IRNA said three bridges were hit Saturday, including one on a route to Bandar Abbas.
Iran acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the U.S. airstrikes for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces “experiencing extreme heat.” It did not specify what was hit.
Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.
Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and has given Tehran significant leverage in negotiations.
Iran has said the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should pay fees to Tehran, even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. It fired on ships on recent days. Crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.
Trump has resumed threats to target power stations and bridges to try to compel Iran to loosen its hold. The U.S. in the past week reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil.
A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping.
Before the war began, the U.S. had been in talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump now faces political pressure to end the war and avoid the kind of prolonged Middle East conflict he had campaigned against.
Ezzidin reported from Cairo and Toropin from Washington. Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel and Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq contributed to this report.
A man displays a placard with portraits of the current and late supreme leaders and the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani at the Islamic Revolution Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People look at books which are placed for sale on a street in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks past a mural depicting a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strike on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women sit beneath a banner reading in English, "Kill Trump," during a pro-government rally in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women gather during a pro-government rally as one holds a sign reading in English, "Kill Trump," in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pro-government demonstrators gather at a square in Tehran, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
