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

Por Rebekah Riess, CNN

Mientras muchos viajeros enfrentan largas y serpenteantes filas de seguridad en todo Estados Unidos durante el cierre parcial del Gobierno, muchos quizá no se den cuenta del complicado recorrido que sigue el dinero hasta llegar a los cheques de pago de los agentes de la Administración de Seguridad en el Transporte (TSA, por sus siglas en inglés).

Hay alrededor de 61.000 empleados de la TSA que actualmente están atrapados en medio, mientras el Congreso sigue estancado en un punto muerto sobre la financiación del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, que supervisa a la TSA. Considerados trabajadores esenciales, deben permanecer en sus puestos en los más de 430 aeropuertos comerciales del país durante el cierre, aunque no cobrarán hasta que termine la interrupción de la financiación.

El presidente Donald Trump dijo que agentes del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés) se dirigirán este lunes a los aeropuertos de Estados Unidos para ayudar a aliviar la presión sobre los trabajadores de la TSA si los legisladores no llegan a un acuerdo para financiar el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS, por sus siglas en inglés).

Muchos pasajeros realmente no saben quién paga a los agentes de la TSA —si es el Gobierno federal, los aeropuertos o las aerolíneas—, según grupos focales realizados por la US Travel Association, una organización sin fines de lucro y no partidista que aboga por la industria de viajes de Estados Unidos.

El presupuesto de la TSA se financia en parte con una tarifa que usted paga al reservar su boleto de avión. Esa tarifa para pasajeros, también conocida como la Tarifa de Seguridad del 11 de Septiembre, fue establecida por el Congreso tras los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001. Actualmente es de 5,60 dólares por viaje de ida y está limitada a US$ 11,20 por viaje de ida y vuelta.

La tarifa la recauda la aerolínea con la que usted reserva y aparece desglosada junto con los impuestos y las tarifas impuestas por la aerolínea en su recibo. Luego, las aerolíneas transfieren a la TSA los ingresos recaudados por esa tarifa.

“La idea de la tarifa de seguridad de la aviación, la tarifa del 11 de septiembre, era que cubriera la mayor parte, si no la totalidad, de los salarios y beneficios y de todas las demás cosas asociadas con el presupuesto de la TSA”, dijo el exadministrador de la TSA John Pistole. Su objetivo era “que los usuarios de los servicios —es decir, los pasajeros— pagaran por esos servicios, en lugar de que fuera simplemente un regalo del gobierno”, añadió Pistole.

La tarifa es clave para cubrir los costos de la seguridad de los pasajeros en los viajes aéreos, incluidos los beneficios y salarios de los agentes federales de control, junto con programas como el Servicio Federal de Alguaciles Aéreos, según la US Travel Association.

De los más de US$ 4.000 millones recaudados cada año por tarifas de seguridad de pasajeros, casi todos los ingresos se depositan en el fondo general del Departamento del Tesoro. Solo US$ 250 millones pueden ser utilizados directamente por la TSA para gastar en un número limitado de costos de seguridad.

Y en 2013, la Ley de Presupuesto Bipartidista dispuso que una parte de los ingresos de la tarifa de seg

CNN

By Karina Tsui, Martin Goillandeau, Lex Harvey, Shimon Prokupecz, Gloria Pazmino, Aaron Cooper, CNN

(CNN) — An Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Sunday, killing the pilot and copilot and injuring dozens, officials said.

Around 11:40 p.m., a Jazz Aviation flight operating on behalf of Air Canada struck a Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle, which was responding to a separate incident, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a statement.

“Emergency response protocols were immediately activated,” the statement said. “The airport is currently closed to facilitate the response and allow for a thorough investigation.”

The plane was carrying 72 passengers and 4 crew members, the airline said.

Initial reports indicate 41 passengers and crew were transported to the hospital and 32 of those have since been released, Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said at a news conference early Monday morning.

Two people in the fire truck were also taken to the hospital and are in stable condition, Garcia said.

Passengers from the flight were directed to Air Canada’s ticket counter to be reunited with their families, according to Garcia, who said that included one unaccompanied minor who was on the plane.

The airport will be closed at least until 2 p.m. Monday for the investigation into the collision, Garcia said.

The truck had preliminarily been cleared and was responding to a nearby flight that had requested assistance for an unknown odor in the cockpit, a law enforcement official told CNN.

Photos and videos from the scene showed severe damage to the nose of the plane.

Jazz confirmed the incident involving Air Canada flight 8646 from Montreal in a statement early Monday.

The flight took off from Montreal Trudeau International Airport shortly after 10:30 p.m. ET and arrived at LaGuardia about an hour later, according to the flight tracking site FlightRadar24.

The plane was going about 130 miles per hour just before it hit the fire truck, according to the last data point collected before the collision by Flightradar24.

The New York City Fire Department said it responded to a reported incident involving a plane and vehicle on the airport’s runway at around 11:38 p.m.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop at LaGuardia shortly after the collision due to an “aircraft emergency.” The airport is expected to be closed until 2 p.m. Monday, according to the FAA.

Sunday’s collision comes as airports across the US have been thrown into turmoil amid the ongoing lapse of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has left Transportation Security Administration officers working without pay.

Half of the nation’s busiest airports had more than a third of TSA officers call out Saturday, as passengers reported waiting hours in security lines. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will deploy to airports Monday to help fill the gaps, federal officials said.

Air traffic control audio captures the moments leading up to the collision, which began with another flight reporting an emergency on the other side of the airport.

United flight 2384 aborted a takeoff due to a warning light, and the pilots reported an odor in the cabin had sickened the flight attendants, according to a Read more

By Amarachi Orie, CNN

(CNN) — Cambodia’s largely unexplored limestone caves stretch for thousands of miles, are home to countless undiscovered species and host unique ecosystems, with creatures found nowhere else on Earth.

Now, a new survey of caves in the northwestern province of Battambang has uncovered a range of species that are new to science, including a turquoise pit viper, a flying snake, several geckos, two micro-snails and two millipedes.

The viper and three of the newly discovered gecko species are still being formally named and characterized. The other finds have been officially recognized over the course of the biodiversity survey, which explored 64 caves across 10 hills between November 2023 and July 2025, and was published in a report Monday.

Each hill and cave in Cambodia’s rocky karst landscape –– a term for a landscape created when rocks break down, forming large cave springs, sinking streams and sinkholes –– is isolated from the others. Each performs as its own individual “island laboratory” of evolution, holding numerous distinct life forms that have adapted to their niche habitat, according to UK-based conservation charity Fauna & Flora, which led the survey along with Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment and field experts.

“Think of it as their own vignette of biodiversity, where nature is performing the same experiment over and over again independently,” evolutionary biologist Lee Grismer, professor of biology at La Sierra University in California, who supported the survey team, said in a statement.

“We go to these separate places and analyse the DNA of the species, and we see how the experiment has run. Some look alike, some look different, and by analysing this we can get an idea of what the driving forces are behind the way they evolve,” he added.

For instance, while researchers identified one species of the striped Kamping Poi bent-toed gecko, named Cyrtodactylus kampingpoiensis, during fieldwork in 2024, they found four different populations evolving in different ways.

“If we are truly going to conserve the biodiversity on this planet, we need to understand what is there,” Grismer continued. “We can’t protect something if we don’t know it exists.”

Globally threatened species such as the Sunda pangolin, green peafowl, long-tailed macaque and northern pig-tailed macaque were also found in the landscape during the latest survey.

Only ‘scratched the surface’

Conservation biologist Pablo Sinovas led the Fauna & Flora team in Cambodia, working with local researchers to get an idea of the terrain during the day and –– the “fun part” –– look for creatures such as snakes and geckos at night, “when they are most active, when they come out of hiding,” he told CNN.

The team would head out after sunset and spend hours traversing “sharp, rocky terrain” with torches, “looking around every crevice, looking around caves in the landscape, rocks, branches, vegetation, really everywhere. It was kind of a nice search party,” said Sinovas, who is now a senior program manager at the charity.

Some caves in the region hold up to one million bats, although the research team did not enter caves with large bat colonies due to health concerns, according to the report.

Karst landscapes make up about 9% of Cambodia’s land area, at 20,000 square kilometers (or 7,722 square miles), said the report, which outlined that “a large portion of this is still unknown to science.”

Fourteen caves that had not previously been surveyed were registered on one karst hill in the Banan district of the Battambang Province.

“There is more exploration to be done,” said Sinovas