By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is on the verge of hitting $4 for the first time since 2022.

That price level is relative: A $4 gallon of gas would be welcome in California, Washington state or Hawaii, where the state averages run north of $5 per gallon; while residents of others states where the cost of living is lower are paying under $3.50 a gallon at the pump.

Regardless of the locale, no one’s really a fan of sharply rising gas prices.

Still, the $4 national average serves as a notable threshold – one that carries psychological, mathematical and mechanical implications for the US economy.

“This is worrisome, especially for those who have the least ability to weather the storm,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG.

The math behind the estimates

Before diving in to the economic effects of $4-per-gallon gas, it’s important to show one’s work.

Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US, laid out some of the building blocks of the gas price quantification:

Every $10 increase in the barrel of oil…

• Creates a 0.1 percentage point drag on real GDP growth (the broadest measure of economic activity)
• Increases inflation by 0.2 percentage points
• Raises prices at the pump by 24 cents
• Causes a $450 annual hit to household income

Oil prices have risen by more than $30 a barrel since the war.

A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.98 before the war started.

Economic activity

A $30 increase in oil prices equates to about a 0.3 percentage point knock on real GDP growth (which was 0.7% at the end of last year). While that’s not very big, it tends to add up over time, Brusuelas said.

It’s not easy to topple a $30 trillion economy – a “dynamic and resilient beast,” Brusuelas said.

“However, even a $30 trillion beast has its pain points,” he added.

And the point where things could start getting dodgy isn’t too far away.

When oil prices go above $125 (and gas prices top $4.25 per gallon, and inflation goes above 4%), that’s when conversations grow louder about “demand destruction,” Brusuelas said. In other words, prices get so high that people change behaviors and don’t buy as much.

And some consumers already are changing their behaviors, taking fewer trips if they can and shifting or cutting out spending, said Swonk.

A drop-off in demand can lead to falling prices; however, the supply of oil has been constrained by disruption and destruction, he said.

Inflation

Late last week, oil prices were up $30 from their pre-war levels, which should roughly equate to a 75-cent gas price hike; however, average prices at the pump were up 93 cents, Brusuelas said.

“So, what that tells us, is the risks on inflation are a little bit higher,” he said.

US prices were increasing at an annual rate of 2.4% in February, before the war started, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data.

That could easily jump to 3.5% when the March data is released in a couple of weeks, and the April rate could top 4%, Brusuelas said.

That 1.1 percentage point estimated jump from February seems to blow past the $10 increase = 0.2 percentage point rise; however, it’s also reflective of the sweeping energy-related price increases (such as in diesel and jet fuel) as well as other war-impacted inputs, such as fertiliz

By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is on the verge of hitting $4 for the first time since 2022.

That price level is relative: A $4 gallon of gas would be welcome in California, Washington state or Hawaii, where the state averages run north of $5 per gallon; while residents of others states where the cost of living is lower are paying under $3.50 a gallon at the pump.

Regardless of the locale, no one’s really a fan of sharply rising gas prices.

Still, the $4 national average serves as a notable threshold – one that carries psychological, mathematical and mechanical implications for the US economy.

“This is worrisome, especially for those who have the least ability to weather the storm,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG.

The math behind the estimates

Before diving in to the economic effects of $4-per-gallon gas, it’s important to show one’s work.

Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US, laid out some of the building blocks of the gas price quantification:

Every $10 increase in the barrel of oil…

• Creates a 0.1 percentage point drag on real GDP growth (the broadest measure of economic activity)
• Increases inflation by 0.2 percentage points
• Raises prices at the pump by 24 cents
• Causes a $450 annual hit to household income through related costs like gas, heating and utilities
• Leads to higher costs for transportation and food

Oil prices have risen by more than $30 a barrel since the war.

A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.98 before the war started.

Economic activity

A $30 increase in oil prices equates to about a 0.3 percentage point knock on real GDP growth (which was 0.7% at the end of last year). While that’s not very big, it tends to add up over time, Brusuelas said.

It’s not easy to topple a $30 trillion economy – a “dynamic and resilient beast,” Brusuelas said.

“However, even a $30 trillion beast has its pain points,” he added.

And the point where things could start getting dodgy isn’t too far away.

When oil prices go above $125 (and gas prices top $4.25 per gallon, and inflation goes above 4%), that’s when conversations grow louder about “demand destruction,” Brusuelas said. In other words, prices get so high that people change behaviors and don’t buy as much.

And some consumers already are changing their behaviors, taking fewer trips if they can and shifting or cutting out spending, said Swonk.

A drop-off in demand can lead to falling prices; however, the supply of oil has been constrained by disruption and destruction, he said.

Inflation

Late last week, oil prices were up $30 from their pre-war levels, which should roughly equate to a 75-cent gas price hike; however, average prices at the pump were up 93 cents, Brusuelas said.

“So, what that tells us, is the risks on inflation are a little bit higher,” he said.

US prices were increasing at an annual rate of 2.4% in February, before the war started, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data.

That could easily jump to 3.5% when the March data is released in a couple of weeks, and the April rate could top 4%, Brusuelas said.

That 1.1 percentage point estimated jump from February seems to blow past the $10 increase = 0.2 percentage point rise; however, it’s also reflective of the sweeping energ

Por CNN en Español

Desplegarán agentes de ICE en los aeropuertos de EE.UU. Colisión en LaGuardia deja dos muertos y decenas de heridos. Padrino López reconoce que tuvo “decisiones difíciles” mientras era ministro de Defensa de Venezuela. Esto es lo que debes saber para comenzar el día. Primero la verdad.

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El Ejército de Irán aseguró que está listo para cerrar indefinidamente el estrecho de Ormuz y atacar infraestructura regional si el presidente de EE.UU. Donald Trump cumple una amenaza de bombardear sus plantas eléctricas si la importante vía fluvial no se reabre este lunes. Mientras tanto, Israel sigue bombardeando el Líbano y aumentan las muertes en la región por la guerra que ya entra en su cuarta semana.

El presidente de EE.UU., Donald Trump, anunció el domingo que el zar de la frontera, Tom Homan, estará a cargo del despliegue de agentes del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés) en los aeropuertos este lunes. Homan dijo a CNN que los agentes ayudarán con la seguridad en las entradas y salidas para aliviar la carga de trabajo de la Administración de Seguridad del Transporte (TSA, por sus siglas en inglés) en medio del cierre parcial del Gobierno.

• Qué se espera en los aeropuertos tras el anuncio de Trump de enviar agentes del ICE
• ¿Por qué solo los pasajeros de 20 aeropuertos de EE.UU. no sufren largas filas ni retrasos?
• La mayoría de los viajeros no sabe quién paga a los agentes de la TSA. Estas son las claves

Un avión de Air Canada colisionó con un camión de bomberos mientras aterrizaba en el aeropuerto LaGuardia de Nueva York el domingo: el piloto y el copiloto murieron y decenas de personas resultaron heridas, según las autoridades. El aeropuerto permanecerá cerrado por las próximas horas, mientras se investiga el incidente.

El viceministro de Exteriores de Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, afirmó el domingo que las fuerzas armadas de su país están preparándose para unaRead more

By Hanna Ziady, Helen Regan, CNN

London/Hong Kong (CNN) — Oil prices rose Monday after the United States and Iran threatened fresh attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East, including power plants, signaling that the conflict may yet escalate.

As the war entered its fourth week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) also said Monday that the reduction of global oil supply from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz was larger than the loss caused by the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, gained 1% to trade at $113 a barrel. WTI, the US benchmark, rose 0.8% to $99 a barrel.

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump said the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday evening. His comments came barely a day after he talked about “winding down” the war.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it would respond in kind to any attacks on its power plants and also keep the Strait of Hormuz closed indefinitely.

“If you strike electricity, we will strike electricity,” the IRGC said in a statement published by the semi-official Fars news agency Monday. Israeli energy and communications infrastructure and power plants of countries in the region that host US military bases would also be targeted, Iran said.

Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf wrote on X Sunday that, if Trump made good on his threat, critical infrastructure and oil facilities in the Middle East would be considered “legitimate targets” and would be destroyed.

Worse than the 1970s

At least 44 energy assets in the region have been severely or very severely damaged across nine countries, according to IEA executive director, Fatih Birol.

The energy shock as a result of the war is worse than the two consecutive oil crises in 1973 and 1979, in which the world lost about 10 million barrels of oil per day, Birol told the National Press Club of Australia Monday. The loss of natural gas supply, meanwhile, outstrips the 2022 energy crisis linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said.

“And not only oil and gas, some of the vital arteries of the global economy, such as petrochemical, such as fertilizers, such as sulfur, such as helium, their trade is all interrupted, which would have serious consequences for the global economy,” Birol added.

“The single most important solution to this problem is opening up the Hormuz trade.”

Birol said the agency was talking with countries including Canada and Mexico about increasing the production of crude and oil products. “We have (oil) stocks and we are incentivizing many countries with refineries to move faster than they normally do,” Birol said.

IEA member countries agreed on March 11 to release a record 400 million barrels of oil from strategic stockpiles to ease a global supply crunch and put a cap on price increases. Birol said Monday that the organization was consulting with governments around the world on releasing more oil if necessary.

“If needed, we can put more oil in the markets, both crude oil and products,” he said. “Our stock release will help to comfort the markets, but this is not the solution. It will only help to reduce the pain and th

By Andrew Freedman, CNN

(CNN) — For more than 30 years, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization has told us how terrible things are getting with global climate change. Their annual “State of the Climate” report is a compendium of climate change facts and figures collected throughout the previous 365 days. It’s an authoritative look at the state of our global climate and its increasingly precarious condition.

And I, a climate reporter, almost never write a thing about it.

This year’s edition, covering 2025, is out today.

The findings are stark, even frightening. But, like every year, it also feels like a bit of a rehash. “What exactly is new here?” I usually wonder before moving on to the next assignment.

It is not just me who can be dismissive of this particular press rollout. Past coverage of the State of the Climate report and documents like it has shown that you, the reader, have limited interest in stories about another UN climate report containing warnings of impending doom.

The fact that the past 11 years were the hottest on record? Yawn. The announcement that greenhouse gases in the air are at unprecedented levels for all of human history? Wake me when you’ve got something new to report. The oceans are warming at never-before-seen rates? Didn’t we already know that?

The findings should be jarring reminders of planetary vital signs flashing red. But similar observations were made last year … and the year before that.

However, the very fact that these reports feel too routine to cover is a testament to how far climate change has progressed, even just in the past decade. Unfortunately, we’ve built up some immunity to bad news about the climate.

Though the individual data points may have been reported already, this edition contains more detailed and disturbing information about the climate than any before. If it were an audiobook, it would be filled with screaming rather than speaking, with the narrator gripped by the urgency of the information it contains.

That realization led me to take the crazy (for me) step of telling you about this release. Plus, this year’s compendium contains some information that past editions have not featured — new information that helps explain the speed-up in the rate of global warming in recent years.

A section of the report contains details on the Earth’s energy imbalance: how much of the Sun’s energy the atmosphere is letting in versus how much is escaping back out into space. Any extra energy trapped in the atmosphere or oceans acts as a warming agent.

For the Earth’s climate to remain at around the same, stable global average temperature, this equation must balance out.

But in 2025, the report found it was more out of balance than has been observed in the 65-year record of such data. The imbalance has been increasing during the past two decades, before reaching this new high.

“Human activities are increasingly disrupting the natural equilibrium and we will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years,” said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo, in a statement.

Interestingly, only a small amount of excess heat goes into warming the atmosphere, the report notes. More than 91% of the surplus heat is getting stored in the oceans, where heat content reached a record high last year. The excess heat is also warming and melting the planet’s ice sheets, raising sea levels worldwide.

The record high levels of greenhouse gases in the air are also why so many extreme events, from heat waves to floods, are now occurring with greater regularity and severity.

At the end of the day, the State of the Climate report may not be “news” per se, but it is important. And it is a report I will be coming back to dur