By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — Fast-rising gas prices lifted the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge to 3.5% in March, its highest rate in almost three years, new data showed Thursday.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rose 0.7% from February, a faster-than-expected acceleration from the previous monthly pace of 0.4%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The annual rate of inflation, which jumped from 2.8% in February, is now running at its fastest pace since May 2023.

Economists were expecting the price index to rise 0.6% from the month before and 3.6% on an annual basis, according to FactSet.

The PCE Price Index is the inflation gauge the Federal Reserve uses for its 2% target rate.

The US-Israeli war against Iran, which is now entering its ninth week, has sent shockwaves through the global economy. Shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle, choking off a vital waterway for the trade of oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other critical materials.

The sharp hike in energy prices, an aftershock of the Middle East conflict’s squeeze on the oil trade, was largely responsible for the sudden jump in inflation.

When excluding food and energy costs, prices rose 0.3% from February and 3.2% on an annual basis. That’s in line with what economists were expecting.

In addition to the PCE price index, which the Federal Reserve uses for its 2% inflation target, Thursday’s Commerce Department report also provided a look at how households’ spending, income and savings were holding up.

Consumer spending jumped 0.9% from February, but when taking inflation into account, it rose just 0.2%.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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By Clare Sebastian, Anna Chernova, CNN

(CNN) — For the third time in 12 days, the Russian Black Sea town of Tuapse woke up Tuesday to apocalyptic scenes.

Thick toxic fumes, and flames rising up from the latest Ukrainian drone attack on the Rosneft-owned Tuapse oil refinery, almost reached the heights of the surrounding Caucasus mountains.

By Thursday morning, authorities said the fire had been extinguished. Fires from the two previous attacks, on April 16 and 20, also took days to put out, with toxic substances pouring down in black rain and blanketing cars and streets in oily grime, leading to what experts are dubbing the worst environmental disaster in the region in years.

“The city is choking on smoke,” one resident said on social media.

Located around 70 miles northwest of Sochi, which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics, Tuapse is part of the subtropical resort area along the Black Sea coast, once known as the “Russian Riviera” thanks to its popularity among Russians as a summer holiday destination. The town’s refinery, attached to a marine terminal, is a key oil-processing and export hub for Russia, and has been repeatedly targeted by Ukraine in recent months.

“Oil is literally falling from the sky. We can’t breathe. The entire city reeks of fuel oil, dripping onto cars,” Elmira Ayrapetyan, an entrepreneur who runs a branding agency in nearby Krasnodar and came to Tuapse to help with the clean-up, told CNN.

Volunteers have come together here partly because it took almost two weeks – and three attacks in quick succession – for regional and federal authorities to react.

On Tuesday, the Kremlin acknowledged the situation for the first time, and President Vladimir Putin dispatched his emergencies minister Aleksandr Kurenkov to the scene to coordinate the fire response. “The situation is not easy, but it’s controllable,” the minister said.

The governor of the Krasnodar region had used the same wording earlier that day as he surveyed the damage, flames and smoke still billowing into the streets.

‘Real environmental catastrophe’

Putin used the disaster as an opportunity to repeat well-worn accusations against Ukraine of carrying out “terrorist attacks” against Russian civilians and energy infrastructure.

In a late-night security meeting Tuesday, he said that strikes on Tuapse “could potentially cause serious environmental consequences” but added that “it seems there are no serious threats; people are dealing with the challenges they face on the spot.”

Environmental experts take a somewhat different view.

“It’s a real environmental catastrophe, regional in scale at a minimum. There hasn’t been anything like this for several years,” ecologist and opposition political activist Yevgeny Vitishko told CNN in an interview conducted before Tuesday’s attack.

Satellite images and social media video verified by CNN show the oil has spilled into the Tuapse river and the sea, with parts of Russia’s southern Black Sea coast still blackened by fuel oil, though part of the main beach in Tuapse appeared to have been cleaned by Tuesday.

CNN analysis of satellite imagery from Sunday, before the latest attack, shows traces of oil have spread at least 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the shore. Russia’s emergencies minister announced Tuesday that barriers would be placed “soon” to prevent “potential leaks into the sea.”

By Bryan Mena, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The US economy picked up steam in the beginning of the year as the United States and Israel launched a destabilizing war with Iran that has jacked up prices and is still ongoing.

Gross domestic product, which measures all the goods and services produced in the economy, registered a 2% annualized rate in the January-through-March period, the Commerce Department said Thursday, up sharply from the fourth quarter’s 0.5%. That was slightly lower than the 2.3% rate economists projected in a poll by data firm FactSet. GDP is adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation.

The first-quarter figure shows the economy headed into the Iran war on strong footing, boosted by bigger tax returns that helped offset the initial uptick in prices at the pump. But the Middle East conflict is now in its ninth week, and economists broadly agree that the longer it lasts, the more damage it will inflict on the US economy. It’s also prompting the Federal Reserve to delay any further rate cuts, with global oil prices still firmly above $100 a gallon, which is keeping US gas prices elevated.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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Por Elizabeth González, CNN en Español

El canal de Panamá volvió a ser objeto de comunicados y críticas entre Estados Unidos y China, a los que se sumaron algunos aliados de Washington, en un momento en que la vía interoceánica crece en relevancia mundial por la crisis en Medio Oriente y el cierre del estrecho de Ormuz.

Habitualmente, hay unos 90 buques en las zonas de fondeadero, designadas para la espera y reposicionamiento de las naves. Pero este martes había 116 entre el Pacífico y el Atlántico, según dijo a CNN Boris Moreno, vicepresidente de Operaciones de la Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP). El funcionario negó que haya un colapso o congestión por ese salto de casi 30 %. Dijo que se trata de un aumento de la demanda por la crisis en el Golfo Pérsico.

En enero, pasaban 32 buques por día, y el promedio es de 36, pero la ACP informó que en los últimos días están pasando entre 38 y 41.

La situación también está elevando los costos para quienes deciden pujar por uno de los hasta cinco cupos que se abren cada día para los buques que no tienen reserva para pasar por la vía y necesitan llegar pronto a destino. Las subastas, que no afectan el turno de las reservas obtenidas con anterioridad, llegó en los últimos días hasta los US$ 4 millones, más de 10 veces superior al promedio habitual.

El miércoles, el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de China respondió a un comunicado firmado por EE.UU. y cinco países de la región y dijo que incurrieron en declaraciones “completamente infundadas” y que “distorsionan la realidad”.

En esa declaración conjunta, EE.UU., Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay y Trinidad y Tobago indicaron que están en “una vigilancia constante ante la presión económica por parte de China y las acciones recientes que han afectado a embarcaciones con bandera panameña”, una situación que, según el Gobierno de Panamá investigan, porque efectivamente desde marzo hay un aumento significativo en la detención de buques con bandera panameña en puertos chinos, supuestamente para inspección.

A finales de febrero, el Gobierno de Panamá tomó la administración de los puertos de Balboa y Cristóbal, en ambos extremos del Canal de Panamá, luego que la Corte Suprema de Justicia del país declaró inconstitucional un contrato con Panama Ports Company y su filial hongkonés CK Hutchinson Holding, grupo que por casi tres décadas operó esas terminales.

“Estas acciones, tras la decisión de la Corte Suprema de Justicia independiente de Panamá sobre los puertos de Balboa y Cristóbal, son un intento flagrante de politizar el comercio marítimo e infringir la soberanía de las naciones de nuestro hemisferio”, denunció el grupo de países en su declaración.

En respuesta, este miércoles el portavoz del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Lin Jian, dijo que “esas declaraciones son completamente infundadas y distorsionan la realidad”, y lanzó las preguntas: “¿Quién ocupaba durante mucho tiempo el Canal de Panamá, invadió armadamente Panamá y pisoteaba arbitrariamente su soberanía y dignidad? ¿Quién codicia el Canal de Panamá, pretende convertir en su propia zanja esta vía internacional que debería ser permanentemente neutral, y desprecia la soberanía de los países regionales?”.

En conferencia de prensa, el portavoz chino dijo que, a las anteriores preguntas, “la respuesta es evidente por sí sola” y agregó que “quien ha politizado y convertido en cuestión de seguridad la cuestión de los puertos es Estados Unidos; quien actúa con

By Issy Ronald, CNN

London (CNN) — “If you are visibly Jewish, you’re not safe” in Britain, the country’s chief rabbi said Thursday, expressing the anxiety of the British Jewish community after two men were stabbed in a London neighborhood already reeling from several recent antisemitic attacks.

“I’m sad to say that today’s event proves that if you are visibly Jewish you’re not safe, and far more needs to be done,” Ephraim Mirvis told the BBC.

“Over the past few days, people have been thinking ‘Chas Veshalom’ God forbid – where will the next one be?” he added in a post on X.

One of the Jewish victims was stabbed at a bus stop while putting on his kippah, and another was stabbed as he walked down the street in Wednesday morning’s attack in Golders Green, described by police as a terrorist incident. Both men are in a stable condition in hospital, and a 45-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder, police said.

The suspect was known to authorities since he had been referred to the government’s Prevent counter-extremism program in 2020, police added Thursday.

London’s Jewish community, which is concentrated in the north of the city, has been targeted by several antisemitic attacks in recent weeks. Those have included arsonists setting fire to four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green last month and an attack on a synagogue two weeks ago.

Such repeated attacks led UK terrorism adviser Jonathan Hall to call this the “biggest national security emergency” facing Britain since 2017, when several terror attacks, including one targeting an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killed 35 people.

“There are Brits, in London in particular… who are now thinking they cannot live a normal life. And it’s not one attack, it’s multiple attacks,” he told the BBC.

And local MP Sarah Sackman told BBC Newsnight that “we can’t guarantee that everybody is kept safe” even as “the threats to Jewish people in this country are very real.”

Britain’s interior minister, Shabana Mahmood, said she was treating the string of attacks like an “emergency,” though she did not go as far as characterizing the threat as a “national emergency.”

She added that claims of responsibility by a shadowy, Iranian-backed group were being investigated but that police have not yet established whether those claims are simply opportunistic or substantive.

The government announced a further £25 million ($34 million) to help fund increased security for Jewish communities, which will be centered in places like synagogues, schools and community centers. That is in addition to £33 million ($44.5 million) the government previously committed to earlier this year, according to PA Media.

Still, the anger among London’s Jewish community was palpable. Dozens protested against Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he visited the neigborhood Thursday, while prominent journalist Ben Judah pointed to France mobilizing 10,000 troops to protect Jewish centers after the Charlie Hebdo attacks