Israel says 2 top Iranian officials killed in airstrikes in blow to Tehran leadership

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's top security official and the head of the Revolutionary Guard's Basij militia were both killed in overnight strikes in a blow to the country’s leadership, Israel's defense minister said Tuesday, while Tehran defiantly fired new salvos of missiles and drones at its Gulf Arab neighbors and Israel.

Both security official Ali Larijani and Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani were “eliminated last night," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died in an airstrike Feb. 28, the first day of the war launched by the United States and Israel, and other top leaders from the Iranian theocracy have been killed since then.

Iranian state media did not immediately confirm either death. However, it said a message from Larijani’s office would be published shortly.

The announcement came after the Israeli military had earlier said it had carried out a “wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran’s capital and stepped up strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Israel also reported two incoming salvos before dawn from Iran at Tel Aviv and elsewhere, and said Hezbollah targeted Israel’s north.

Incoming Iranian missiles on the United Arab Emirates prompted Dubai, a major transit hub for international travel, to briefly shut its airspace and a man was killed by the debris of a missile intercepted over Abu Dhabi.

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Iran war pushes countries into energy triage as they conserve power and curb soaring prices

BANGKOK (AP) — The escalating war with Iran is pushing parts of the world into energy triage, forcing governments to choose where to cut demand or absorb costs, while prioritizing dwindling supplies.

Asia is the most exposed since it relies heavily on imported fuel, much of it shipped through the now-blockedStrait of Hormuz. The narrow passage offshore from Iran is the main route for shipping a fifth of global trade in crude oil and liquified natural gas.

Governments in the region are scrambling to adjust — tallying oil reserves, conserving energy, competing for supplies and trying to blunt prices. That brings difficult trade-offs: saving power may slow business activity. Prioritizing cooking gas for households can hurt restaurants and other businesses.

“Even relatively modest constraints on energy use can create a drag on industrial activity,” said Linh Nguyen, with the consultancy Control Risks. She pointed to Vietnam’s energy-intensive export industries and warned that higher fuel costs or conservation measures could quickly raise production costs or slow factory output.

Analysts warn the same hard choices could soon spread beyond Asia to fuel-importing economies in Africa and elsewhere as countries compete for scarce supplies.

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Rescue crews dig bodies out of the ruins of a Kabul hospital hit in an airstrike blamed on Pakistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Rescue crews were still digging bodies out of the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital on Tuesday morning, after officials there said that an overnight Pakistani airstrike killed at least 400 people in a dramatic escalation of a conflict between the two neighbors that is now in its third week.

Pakistan has denied Afghanistan’s accusation that it targeted a hospital, insisting that its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, were aimed at military facilities. It dismissed Afghanistan's claims of hundreds of casualties from a strike on a hospital as being propaganda.

The casualties were taken to several hospitals in the area. It wasn't immediately possible to independently confirm the death toll.

The conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan began in late February, and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded. The strike came hours after Afghan officials said that the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan.

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of providing safe haven for militants who frequently carry out attacks inside Pakistan, especially to the Pakistani Taliban, a group separate but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban who took over Afghanistan in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. The group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. Kabul denies the charge.

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Suspected suicide bombers target Nigeria’s Maiduguri city, killing 23 people and injuring over 100

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — At least 23 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in suspected suicide bombings Monday night that targeted Maiduguri city in northeastern Nigeria, police said Tuesday. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the conflict-battered city in recent history.

Residents and emergency services earlier told The Associated Press that three explosions were reported in crowded places in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, including in a major market and at the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.

“Regrettably, a total of 23 persons lost their lives, while 108 others sustained varying degrees of injuries,” Borno police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement that blamed the attacks on suspected suicide bombers.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion quickly fell on the Boko Haram jihadi group, which in 2009 launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria to enforce their radical interpretation of Shariah.

Boko Haram has since become stronger, with thousands of fighters and different factions, including the Islamic State West Africa Province, which is backed by the Islamic State group.

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World shares are mixed and US futures slip as Brent hovers above $100 a barrel

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mixed in Europe and Asia on Tuesday after a drop in oil prices helped send the U.S. stock market to its best day since the war in Iran began.

The reprieve in prices for crude was short-lived, with Brent crude climbing nearly 4% early Tuesday to $104.13 a barrel. U.S. benchmark crude also climbed, to $97.53 per barrel after dipping to about $93 on Monday.

U.S. futures fell back, with the contracts for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.3%.

In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 gave up early gains to slip 0.1% to 53,700.39 and the Kospi in South Korea jumped 1.6% to 5,640.48.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.1% to 25,668.54, while the Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.9% to 4,049.91.

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Some flight cancellations and delays continue after US storms dump snow in the Midwest and head east

ATLANTA (AP) — Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed Tuesday, one day after powerful storms swept across the eastern half of the country and upended air travel in a cross-section of cities. Travelers have been facing additional jams at airport security checkpoints as a partial government shutdown strains screener staffing.

The disruptions come at an already challenging time for air travel, in part because the shutdown that began Feb. 14 has pressured staffing at some security checkpoints. At the same time, airports are crowded with spring break travelers and fans heading to March Madness games, the annual NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments.

More than 750 flights scheduled to fly into, out of or within the U.S. have been called off as of early Tuesday, and about 1,300 were delayed, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

Flight delays and cancellations piled up Monday at some of the nation’s largest airports, including those in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. The storm system that dumped heavy snow across the Midwest raced toward the East Coast with high winds reaching gusts near 50 mph (80 km) in parts of New York, the National Weather Service said.

Kelly Price, who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, said her Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until early Monday.

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Hundreds of migrants are vanishing in the Mediterranean. Authorities are withholding information

ROME (AP) — Bodies washing ashore day after day. Phone calls from relatives going unanswered. Migrants’ tents abandoned overnight.

Migrants trying to reach Europe are vanishing in droves in what are known as “invisible shipwrecks” but governments responsible for search and rescue are withholding information about what they know.

The beginning of 2026 ranks as the deadliest start to any year for people trying to cross the Mediterranean — an unprecedented 682 confirmed missing as of March 16 — according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration. But the real death toll is almost certainly much higher.

Human rights groups are increasingly struggling to verify tolls as Italy, Tunisia and Malta have quietly restricted information on migrant rescues and shipwrecks along the deadliest migration route in the world. The news barely makes headlines, in part because the lack of transparency prevents journalists from confirming reports.

“It’s a strategy of silence,” said Matteo Villa, a researcher focusing on migration and data at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies think tank.

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Trump team applying pressure to media: Tell the war's story the way we see it

Through lectures, scoldings and outright threats, President Donald Trump and his aides are ratcheting up the pressure on journalists to cover the war in the Middle East the way the administration wants.

The president has fumed on social media about stories he doesn't like and berated a reporter on Air Force One. The government's top media regulator has warned that broadcasters risk losing their licenses if they don't stay away from “fake news.” Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have both questioned the patriotism of news outlets because of their reporting.

Trump has complained about war coverage in both specific and general ways. In a social media post, he said news reports exaggerated the damage to planes that were attacked by Iran at an airport in Saudi Arabia. He attacked “Corrupt Media Outlets” for falling for AI-generated false reports created by Iran and said the media “hates to report” how well the U.S. military has performed.

All presidential administrations tangle with the press; it's the natural byproduct of journalists' watchdog roles in a democratic society. But the incidents of the past few days speak to a hostility toward the very idea of being questioned — in a way that, some say, scratches up against the First Amendment itself.

Meeting with reporters on Air Force One while returning to the White House from Florida late Sunday, the president objected to a question from ABC News' Mariam Khan about a fundraising message that used a photo taken at last week's dignified transfer ceremony of the remains of U.S. service members.

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Islandwide blackout hits Cuba as it struggles with deepening energy crisis

HAVANA (AP) — Officials in Cuba reported an islandwide blackout Monday in the country of some 11 million people as its energy and economic crises deepen and its power grid continues to crumble.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines on X noted a “complete disconnection” of the country’s electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid collapsed.

Lázaro Guerra, the ministry's electricity director, told state media late Monday that crews were trying to restart several thermoelectric plants, which are key to restoring power.

“It must be done gradually to avoid setbacks,” he said. “Because systems, when very weak, are more susceptible to failure.”

As night fell, candles began to burn in some homes while the sounds of children playing and singing with their mother filled one dark house in Havana.

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Winds, blizzards and triple-digit heat put over half of the US in the path of extreme weather

WASHINGTON (AP) — From a surprising heatwave in California to blizzards burying parts of the Midwest and storms rolling into the East Coast, chaotic weather on Monday put more than half the nation’s population in the path of extreme conditions.

Airport delays and cancellations piled up in some of the nation’s largest airports, with more than 4,700 canceled across the U.S., and many schools closed early in the mid-Atlantic states, where high winds were in the forecast.

Torrential rains flooded homes and washed out roads in Hawaii while dry and windy conditions were charging the largest wildfire in Nebraska’s history.

In Washington, the House and Senate postponed votes, and federal agencies told workers to go home early. But by late afternoon, the expected rough weather had failed to develop and a tornado watch expired.

The private weather service AccuWeather calculated that more than 200 million people were under threat Monday of some kind of dangerous weather.

News from © The Associated Press, 2026