German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Britain Friday to quickly launch Brexit talks with the European Union after Prime Minister Theresa May suffered a harsh election setback.

A four-month-old baby and a 17-year-old boy were among six people shot dead Friday at a house near the Mexican resort of Acapulco, authorities said.

Gunmen burst into the house in the small southern town of San Pedro Cacahuatepec and riddled it with gunfire, according to emergency officials.

Britain was plunged into political turmoil on Friday after Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives lost their parliamentary majority in a snap election just days before negotiations on leaving the EU were set to begin.

Here is a roundup of the reaction from across Europe to the shock election result:

A man armed with a knife held employees hostage for a few hours at a job centre in Newcastle in northeast England, police said Friday.

"Specialist negotiators are at the scene," Northumbria Police said in a statement, adding that there were no reports of injuries.

Japan's parliament passed a law Friday that clears the way for its ageing Emperor Akihito to step down, in what would be the first imperial abdication in more than two centuries.

The popular 83-year-old monarch shocked the country last summer when he signalled his desire to take a back seat after nearly three decades on the Chrysanthemum Throne, citing his age and health problems.

Heavy rains and churning seas hampered search efforts for victims of a military plane crash off Myanmar's southern coast on Friday, as hopes faded of finding survivors after 31 bodies were pulled from the water.

A weak British negotiating partner would further complicate talks on the country's exit from the European Union, a top EU official warned Friday after Britain's election ended in a hung parliament.

Snap elections in Britain have resulted in a hung parliament -- a legislature in which Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives are the biggest party but have lost their overall majority.

Iran's supreme leader hit out at the United States and Saudi Arabia during the funerals Friday for those slain in the first attacks in the country claimed by the Islamic State group.

The assault by gunmen and suicide bombers Wednesday on Tehran's parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed 17 people and wounded more than 50.

A Korean Air flight carrying more than 150 passengers landed safely at a Japanese airport Friday shortly after pilots reported seeing smoke in the cockpit, officials said.