By Hanna Ziady, CNN

London (CNN) — Oil prices held steady Wednesday after Iraq clinched a deal to resume some crude exports via Turkey. It’s not a ton of oil, but it’s what amounts for good news these days as the Strait of Hormuz remains largely blocked.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, traded modestly higher at $103.7 a barrel. WTI, the US benchmark, dropped 1.5% to just shy of $95 a barrel.

Crude exports from Iraq’s Kirkuk oil fields are set to resume Wednesday from Turkey’s Ceyhan port after the Kurdistan Regional Government, which controls part of northern Iraq, agreed to allow oil to flow via the Kurdistan Region-Ceyhan pipeline.

Iraq’s federal government and the KRG “also agreed to take the necessary security measures to protect the oil fields and ensure the continuity of oil exports,” the KRG said in a statement Tuesday.

The pipeline exports from the Kirkuk will flow at a rate of 250,000 barrels a day, a mere “drop in the ocean,” according to Neil Wilson, a strategist at trading platform Saxo. But the resumption of those flows is still “another positive headline relative to the simmering war,” he said in a note.

For context, Iraq was producing about 4.5 million barrels of oil a day before the war started, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The near-shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz means that around 20 million barrels of crude and oil products, about a fifth of world oil supply, are choked off from the global market every day.

Separately, an Iranian security source told CNN that Tehran is in discussions with eight countries outside the Middle East to grant safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz to tankers carrying oil traded in Chinese yuan. Oil is largely traded in dollars but one exception is Russian oil, which is traded in rubles or yuan.

Brent crude settled at $103.42 Tuesday, its highest level since the start of the war, as Iran intensified its attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf. Crude prices are up around 40% since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

The fact that oil traders largely ignored the news of Iraq’s oil exports means the focus remains on the duration of the war. Iran launched fresh strikes on Israel Wednesday, vowing revenge for the killing of two top Iranian leaders this week, including former security chief Ali Larijani. Two people were killed by missile shrapnel in Tel Aviv, according to police, and multiple locations in the city were struck by falling debris.

Stock markets rose for a third day. In Asia, South Korea’s Kospi climbed 5% and Japan’s Nikkei rose 2.9%, “both helped by tech stocks,” according to Jim Reid, head of global macroeconomic research at Deutsche Bank.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed marginally higher on the day and European markets were also up in morning hours. US futures pointed to a stronger open.

Reid said in a note that there was “a bit more calm in (stock) markets at the moment and a small hint that there is a decoupling from the price of oil.”

Investors will now look ahead to the Federal Reserve meeting later on Wednesday for clues on how the central bank thinks

CNN

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — Tehran is vowing revenge after Israel killed two senior Iranian leaders, in a continued push to pick off power-brokers within the regime. Iran, Israel and Lebanon have traded further strikes, while the United States Embassy in Baghdad was targeted again.

Meanwhile, the US has dropped 5,000-pound bombs on Iranian missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to secure the crucial waterway, which US President Donald Trump had asked for international help to reopen.

Here’s what to know on day 19.

What are the main headlines?

• Top officials killed: Iran confirmed on Tuesday that its powerful security chief Ali Larijani had been killed, announcing a “rapid strike” and “intense” attacks against Israel in retaliation. Larijani is the highest-ranking Iranian official to be killed since the death of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war. Israel has also killed the head of the Basij, Iran’s feared paramilitary force.
• US official resigns: Joe Kent, a senior Trump-appointed US intelligence official, abruptly announced Tuesday he is stepping down from his post, citing misgivings about the administration’s war with Iran. Trump said Kent’s resignation was a “good thing” because he was “very weak on security.”
• Trump dismisses allies: Trump said the US should rethink its NATO membership as he criticized allies for not helping with the war or in securing the Strait of Hormuz. A string of American partners have balked at Trump’s request to send warships to help transport oil through the strait – though a senior official from the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday it’s open to helping.
• Iranian oil deal: Tehran is in discussions with eight countries outside the Middle East over its offer to grant safe passage to oil traded in the Chinese currency yuan, an Iranian security source told CNN. The source did not identify the eight countries.
• US warship movements: A US Navy warship believed to be carrying Marines and sailors to the Middle East is nearing the Malacca Strait of Singapore as it makes its way to the region, maritime tacking data showed Tuesday. Officials told CNN the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli was being sent to the Middle East, without revealing exactly where it would be deployed or what it would be used for.

By Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — The head of the US Postal Service has warned lawmakers that the storied 250-year-old agency is at a “critical juncture” and will run out of cash in less than a year unless Congress allows it to borrow more money and charge more for postage.

“At our current rate, we’ll be out of cash in less than 12 months. So in about a year from now, the postal service would be unable to deliver the mail,” Postmaster General David Steiner said at a Tuesday hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations.

Steiner, a former FedEx board member who became postmaster last year, pointed to the yearslong decline in the use of traditional mail and regulations weighing down the Postal Service’s finances, such as legal obligations for universal service and a limit on how much the agency can borrow.

The Postal Service has historically relied on revenue from its sales to stay afloat and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, though it has received some federal relief. A 10-year plan put in place in 2021 by Steiner’s predecessor to address its financial struggles has failed so far to reverse its losses.

USPS said it incurred net losses of $9 billion last fiscal year and $9.5 billion in 2024. It also lost $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026, it said in February.

The postmaster urged Congress Tuesday to increase USPS’s borrowing authority, which would buy time “that we can use to best determine what the Postal Service should do to best serve the American public” and whether all of the agency’s services should be maintained.

He emphasized the cost of its universal service obligation, which legally requires it provide mail services to all Americans and deliver mail all across the United States at the same price. That includes rural, far-flung or hard-to-reach destinations, expensive places for mail carriers to get to.

“I’m here to tell America that we can do anything you want … If you want the same number of delivery days and post offices, we can do that. But someone has to pay for it,” Steiner said.

Steiner noted the cost of USPS postage is significantly less than other industrialized nations and said raising the price of a first-class stamp from the current 75 cents to about 95 cents “would largely solve our controllable loss.”

Despite being one of the most popular parts of the federal government, according to 2024 data from the Pew Research Center, the agency has struggled with losing money for years alongside the decline in volume of mail – as emails, texts and other electronic communications replace letters, and online payments replace the sending of checks to pay bills.

Citing its financial challenges, President Donald Trump has previously suggested disbanding the US Postal Service’s Board of Governors and placing the agency unde

By Audrey Ash, Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump has heralded a $915 million incentive program and app as key tools to get undocumented immigrants to voluntarily leave the country, part of a broader push his administration credits with getting 2.2 million people to “self-deport.”

But a new document shared internally within DHS and reviewed by CNN shows that the program has helped 72,000 leave the US as of this month.

The majority who signed up were already in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, the document shows.

Homeland Security officials have not publicly released detailed data on how many people have left the US under the new program, which the administration argues saves money by slashing the cost of deportations. The plan, called Project Homecoming, offers stipends of up to $2,600 and free flights to immigrants to return home. Many others have left on their own without using the app, the agency said in a statement.

“DHS has been consistently clear that those who have used the CBP Home app and utilized Project Homecoming are but a fraction of the those who have voluntarily left the country because illegal aliens know President Trump is enforcing our immigration laws,” said a DHS spokesperson in a statement, adding that each self-deportation with incentives costs thousands less than a traditional deportation.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Some experts questioned the efficacy of the program, arguing that many of those who have chosen to leave would have likely done so anyway without the government’s intervention.

“They’re trying to claim credit for those people who are leaving but it’s not obvious to me that those people would’ve stayed in the absence of this financial incentive,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

It’s unclear what metric DHS has used to claim that 2.2 million people have self-deported as of January. That number likely includes thousands who have left voluntarily without engaging with Project Homecoming – either because they didn’t want to notify the government of their movements or because they were unaware of the program.

While the financial incentives are new, voluntary departure, which allows noncitizens to leave the country without the penalties associated with a removal order, already existed as a legal option under previous administrations.

More than 35,000 immigration court cases have ended in “voluntary departure” for the fiscal year of 2025, up from around 9,000 the previous fiscal year, according to data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. It’s unclear how many of the people involved in those 35,000 cases used Project Homecoming.

“Every year, there’s hundreds of thousands of people who leave the United States on their own, voluntarily, for various reasons,” Bier said. “Before this app, that was a zero cost to the government. Nothing was being expended on people leaving the country.”

‘Book your free flight right now’

When the White House announced Project Homecoming last May, Trump hailed it as a powerful new tool. “To all illegal aliens: book your free flight right now,” he urged in a video posted to Truth Social.

The administration took to the airwaves in multimillion-dollar ad campaigns to encourage anyone in the US illegally to leave and launched a social media blitz that’s included an array of posters marketing free flights home. “Home is just a few clicks away!” said a recent X post by DHS.

Initially, the program offered immigrants a $1,000 stipend to be paid after confirmation through the ap

Por Eric Bradner, CNN

Más de un tercio de los agentes de seguridad del Aeropuerto Internacional Hartsfield-Jackson de Atlanta no se presentaron a trabajar el martes, según informó el director general del aeropuerto, lo que provocó que los pasajeros tuvieran que esperar en cola hasta dos horas.

Esta semana se han formado largas colas en diferentes aeropuertos, ya que los agentes de la Administración de Seguridad del Transporte trabajaron sin remuneración durante la ajetreada temporada de viajes de las vacaciones de primavera.

El viernes, más de la mitad de los empleados de la TSA (Administración de Seguridad del Transporte) no se presentaron a trabajar en el Aeropuerto Internacional William P. Hobby de Houston.

Se encuentran entre los 61.000 empleados gubernamentales del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional que están atrapados en medio del estancamiento en el que se encuentra el Congreso respecto a la financiación de la agencia.

“Los viajeros se han portado muy bien”, dijo Aaron Barker, presidente local del sindicato American Federation of Government Employees en Atlanta. “Lo sorprendente, sin embargo, es que mucha gente desconoce que estamos en medio de un cierre de Gobierno”.

Según explicó, los empleados se enfrentan a “avisos de desalojo, embargos de vehículos, refrigeradores vacíos y cuentas bancarias en descubierto”, mientras que los viajeros a los que atienden quizás ni siquiera se den cuenta de las dificultades.

Según el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS), al menos 366 agentes de seguridad del transporte han dimitido desde el inicio del último cierre de Gobierno.

Estos trabajadores han sufrido tres interrupciones en la financiación que han provocado la falta de pago de sus salarios en los últimos seis meses, según señaló el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) en un comunicado de prensa el martes.

A finales del año pasado, el cierre de Gobierno más largo de la historia de Estados Unidos terminó después de que empleados federales, incluidos agentes de la TSA y controladores de tráfico aéreo de la Administración Federal de Aviación, se quedaran sin sueldo durante 43 días. Algunos dejaron de ir a trabajar para ganarse la vida en otros lugares, lo que provocó interrupciones en los viajes.

Los trabajadores recibieron sus salarios atrasados ​​días después de que terminara el cierre, pero a algunos les tomó hasta febrero saldar sus deudas, según informó AFGE a CNN.

A finales de enero se produjo otro breve cierre que duró solo unos días antes de que el Congreso financiara al departamento durante dos semanas. Ese dinero se agotó a mediados de febrero y los empleados del DHS volvieron a quedarse sin cobrar.

“He hablado con agentes que no pueden costear los copagos de los tratamientos contra el cáncer o las consultas médicas de sus hijos enfermos”, dijo Barker.

Algunos aeropuertos han comenzado a pedir a los viajeros que ayuden a los agentes de la TSA. El Aeropuerto Internacional de Denver, el Aeropuerto Internacional de Seattle-Tacoma y el Aeropuerto Internacional Harry Reid en Las Vegas han solicitado donaciones de artículos, incluyendo tarjetas de regalo para supermercados y gasolina, alimentos no perecederos, productos de higiene y artículos para bebés.

Según un