CHICAGO (AP) — White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami is running again as part of his recovery from a right hamstring strain.
Murakami got hurt during a 4-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers on May 29. The first baseman is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks.
“It’s coming along well,” Murakami said Friday through his interpreter, Kenzo Yagi. “Progress is being made day by day. I’m doing well in the rehab itself. Doing really well.”
The 26-year-old Murakami is batting .240 with 20 homers and 41 RBIs in 57 games in his first year in the major leagues. The Japanese slugger signed a $34 million, two-year contract with the White Sox in December.
Manager Will Venable had no update on Murakami's timeline.
“There’s a lot of boxes that he’s got to check still and a lot of things as you look at the progression between the running and the hitting and how the recovery’s going,” Venable said before Friday's 8-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
White Sox catcher Kyle Teel also is progressing and could go out on a minor league rehab assignment soon. The 24-year-old Teel has yet to play this season.
“He’s hitting on the field, running on the field, doing the catching drills,” Venable said. "So it’s a matter of continued recovery and just pushing the intensity a little bit. But I think it could be a matter of days before we send him out.”
Teel, a first-round pick in the 2023 amateur draft, strained his right hamstring while playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic. Then he hurt his right knee while playing for Triple-A Charlotte on a rehab assignment.
Teel was acquired by Chicago in the Garrett Crochet trade in December 2024. He hit .273 with eight homers and 35 RBIs in 78 games last year in his first action with the White Sox.
Left-hander Noah Schultz, who was placed on the 15-day injured list on May 26 with patellar tendinitis in his right knee, is scheduled for a bullpen session on Saturday.
"Assuming that that goes well, he’ll go out on assignment and throw a few innings in Charlotte,” Venable said.
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Chicago White Sox's Munetaka Murakami of Japan, watches teammates from the dugout during the first inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers in Chicago, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
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)
