By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — Investors rattled by the war in Iran have sent oil prices skyrocketing – and global governments have noticed. The world’s biggest economies are now considering emergency releases of millions of barrels of oil into the market.

But while that might sound like a lot, experts say even tens of millions of barrels are more like a drop in the bucket when it comes to global oil needs.

That’s because the world, and the US, uses so much oil every single day that even a relatively large one-time release won’t be able to offset the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil shipments that’s been effectively shut down by the war.

“It’s not zero, but the effect is likely to be pretty small,” said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at energy think tank Resources for the Future, on a coordinated release. “When you sort of consider the volume of global oil trade, just around 100 million barrels per day, even a coordinated SPR (strategic petroleum reserve) release will have a modest impact on global oil prices.”

‘We went artificially up’

The G7 group of large economies have hinted they could release oil, but they haven’t committed to anything yet.

“We stand ready to take necessary measures, including to support global supply of energy such as stockpile release,” the G7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, said in a statement after a Monday meeting.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, settled up nearly 7% Monday, to $98.96 per barrel, the highest settlement price since 2022.

President Donald Trump similarly made no promises on Monday.

“We’re looking to keep the oil prices down. We went artificially up because of this excursion,” he said at a press conference. “I knew oil prices would go up if I did this, and they’ve gone up, probably less than I thought they’d go up.”

A brief pause?

After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine drove up oil prices, the G7 coordinated a release of 240 million barrels from their own holdings, including 180 million barrels from the US SPR.

Gas prices did come down from their $5-a-gallon peak in June 2022, but experts say the G7 oil release helped only marginally. An analysis by the Treasury Department in July 2022 found that it only lowered gas prices by 17 cents to 42 cents a gallon.

“If not for the SPR releases, we likely would have had gas above $5 a gallon for a number of weeks (in 2022) rather than just for a few days,” said Tom Kloza, an independent oil analyst and an advisor to Shell Oil.

The most important factor to bring oil prices down now is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been virtually shut to tanker traffic. Twenty percent of the world’s oil flows through the narrow channel.

“Unless the Strait of Hormuz traffic resumes soon and continues, SPR releases will just cause a brief pause before crude oil prices resume marching higher,” said Bob McNally, president and founder of Rapidan’s Energy Group.

With global oil consumption at about 100 million barrels per day, no one-time release can make up for closing the strait for an extended period of time.

And if the war drags on, releasing SPR oil today will limit future options.

America’s SPR had about 600 million barrels of oil heading into the Ukraine war. Today, it stands at 415 million barrels.

“The thing about the emergency stockpiles is you can only use them once,” said Neil Atkinson, visiti

By Jeremy Herb, Annie Grayer, Jennifer Hansler, Sean Lyngaas, Gabe Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump began his second term with a promise to cut “billions and billions of dollars” in government spending, empowering Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate programs and fire workers it deemed wasteful.

One year later, cuts to programs and personnel at federal agencies that had been declared unneeded mere months ago have hampered the US government’s abilities to prepare for domestic emergencies; monitor terror threats; guard against cyber-attacks; broadcast US information into Iran; and quickly help US citizens stranded abroad, current and former government officials told CNN.

Democrats and a handful of Republicans have long criticized the way that DOGE and the Trump administration slashed government programs, warning it harmed the US domestically and abroad. Now the cuts, which continued even after Musk left government last spring, are again being scrutinized as US strikes on Iran have sparked a war that’s spilled out across the Middle East.

“I think it went overboard. I thought it was too aggressive, too fast, too soon,” GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said of the DOGE cuts.

A former FBI special agent and federal prosecutor, Fitzpatrick told CNN he was against the way DOGE took a “sledgehammer” to agencies, and that lawmakers should look at whether there are “any negative implications from what was done through that process (and) if it’s having any negative impact on any aspect of our government, including our national security and national defense.”

The funding cuts did not appear to have affected the military’s funding for the war — though DOGE did propose nixing some programs at the Pentagon. Still, lawmakers are already talking about the need to pass supplemental funding to give the Defense Department tens of billions more for the war.

The Trump administration and Republicans argue that it’s Democrats who have harmed government preparedness to threats by not funding the Department of Homeland Security, which is shut down as the two parties point fingers over who’s to blame.

“Despite the Democrats’ decision to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, the Trump Administration is working diligently to ensure government security apparatuses continue to operate at the highest levels – and they are,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Some Republicans also say the impact of the DOGE cuts to the government’s war response is overstated. GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the State Department and related national security budgets, maintained that the DOGE cuts only eliminated waste and did not impact the country’s ability to go to war with Iran.

The spending legislation he helped pass through Congress gave more money to US allies to confront China and Iran, he argued.

“We put more money, actual real hard money, into helping our allies confronting our adversaries” Diaz-Balart told CNN. “What we did is we got rid of all this trash that was there.”

‘We’re plainly seeing the consequences’

The Read more

By Alexandra Skores, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Travelers stuck in line for hours at airport security this week are the latest victims of a partial government shutdown that has dragged on for nearly a month.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed in mid-February amid a standoff between Republicans and Democrats over immigration reform. Now, Transporation Security Administration screeners are about to miss a paycheck just as the Spring Break travel season heats up.

Here’s what’s going on and when the long lines might go away.

How we got here

Passengers trying to take to the skies – and the people who screen them – are caught in a politically charged fight.

DHS is the last federal agency not funded by Congress for the rest of the fiscal year, which runs until September 30. Instead, a series of short term extensions were approved, but the last one of those – which only provided money for two weeks of operations – ran out nearly a month ago.

In total, about 61,000 TSA employees must keep working during the shutown. Many live paycheck to paycheck, Ha Nguyen McNeill, a senior official performing the duties of TSA administrator, said in written testimony for a House subcommittee hearing before the funding lapsed.

TSA employees received only a partial paycheck on February 28, and will miss their first full paycheck on March 14. As an apparent result, an increasing number of the screeners are taking unscheduled time off.

The congressional sticking point is immigration reform. DHS not only includes TSA, but also over 20 high-profile agencies – including the the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Senate Democrats called for changes to rules governing immigration enforcement operations after more than a dozen incidents in Minneapolis in January, including two where US citizens were fatally shot. Republicans have resisted the changes.

These are the airports being hit the hardest

While most of the more than 430 commercial airports in the US have TSA staff, some locations have seen an outsized impact.

Security lines at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport stretched for more than three hours on Sunday and Monday, the agency reported. The airport was advising passengers to arrive four to five hours before their flights but reduced the recommendation to three to four hours Monday night.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport said Monday TSA waits can extend up to two hours and advised passengers to arrive at least three hours before their flight. By late afternoon the airport reported the wait times of up to an hour and said passengers should arrive at least two hours before their flight.

Other airports that saw long wait times included Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, Charlotte Douglas International, and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

Is PreCheck still open?

TSA PreCheck lines remain open at most airports.

The program allows travelers who pass a verification process and pay a fee to go through a quicker security screening. DHS said last month they would be closed due to the shutdown so agents could focus on the standard screening lanes, but the department Read more

Análisis por Aaron Blake

La retórica del presidente Donald Trump sobre la guerra con Irán ha sido confusa y contradictoria desde mucho antes de que comenzaran los primeros ataques.

Pero el lunes hizo declaraciones muy diferentes sobre los mismos temas en el lapso de solo unas pocas horas.

La gran noticia del lunes por la tarde fue que parecía que la guerra estaba a punto de terminar, al menos a juzgar por los comentarios de Trump.

En una entrevista telefónica con CBS News, Trump declaró: “Creo que la guerra está prácticamente terminada”.

Pero casi al mismo tiempo, la cuenta de respuesta rápida del Departamento de Defensa publicó en X: “Apenas hemos comenzado a luchar”, sin más contexto. (Y hace apenas unos días, el secretario de Defensa, Pete Hegseth, enfatizó en el programa “60 Minutes” de CBS, en una entrevista grabada el viernes, que “esto es solo el comienzo”).

Y el comentario de Trump en esa entrevista del lunes también fue bastante diferente de lo que diría más tarde.

“Ya hemos ganado en muchos sentidos, pero no lo suficiente”, manifestó en un discurso ante los republicanos de la Cámara de Representantes en Florida. “Seguimos adelante con más determinación que nunca para lograr la victoria definitiva que pondrá fin a este peligro persistente de una vez por todas”.

Minutos después de ese discurso, Trump, en una conferencia de prensa, volvió a calificar la victoria de no tan completa.

“No cederemos hasta derrotar total y decisivamente al enemigo”, afirmó.

“Podríamos decir que es un éxito rotundo ahora mismo; al salir de aquí, podría decirlo”, añadió Trump. “O podríamos ir más allá, y vamos a ir más allá”.

Trump también ofreció algunos comentarios contradictorios sobre el estado del poder de fuego de Irán.

En la misma entrevista de CBS, sugirió que Irán ya no tenía medios para luchar.

Irán “no tiene armada, no tiene comunicaciones, no tiene fuerza aérea”, indicó Trump.

Añadió: “Ya han disparado todo lo que tenían que disparar”.

Y: “Si te fijas, no les queda nada. No queda nada en términos militares”.

En su conferencia de prensa, también afirmó: “No tienen radar, no tienen telecomunicaciones… Todo se acabó”.

Pero en otras partes de ese evento, él consideró que las mismas capacidades estaban muy disminuidas en lugar de haber desaparecido.

Aunque anteriormente había dicho que Irán “no tenía armada”, en cambio afirmó que “la mayor parte del poder naval de Irán se ha hundido”.

(Trump también aumentó rápidamente el número de barcos iraníes que, según él, las fuerzas estadounidenses habían hundido, de 46 durante su discurso a 50 y luego a 51 en su conferencia de prensa).

Si bien había dicho que Irán disparó básicamente todo lo que tenía, en otro momento declaró que su capacidad de misiles se había “reducido a alrededor del 10 %, tal vez menos” y en otro momento indicó que “la mayoría” de los misiles habían sido utilizados o destruidos.

“Los drones probablemente se han reducido al 25 % y pronto se reducirán a nada”, añadió.

Mientras Trump resaltaba los éxitos del esfuerzo bélico en la conferencia de prensa, inicialmente afirmó que el liderazgo de Irán había desaparecido por completo.

“Todo lo que tenían se ha ido, incluido su liderazgo”, apuntó.

“No tienen liderazgo”, añadió.

Pero entonces se dio cuenta de que “los dos niveles de liderazgo han desaparecid

By Taylor Romine, Gloria Pazmino, CNN

(CNN) — Two Pennsylvania men on Saturday followed the route taken by thousands as they crossed the George Washington Bridge into New York City. But less than an hour later, their trajectory took a dark turn as they were arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were charged Monday with providing material support to a terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction, among other charges, after they threw two improved explosive devices, also known as IEDs, during a protest, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.

The men told law enforcement they were inspired by ISIS, the terrorist group that has seen a resurgence in recent years.

“This was a planned attack motivated by extremist ideology and inspired by a violent foreign terrorist organization,” New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference.

The events come as the city is near the tail-end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, all while taking place outside the residence of the city’s first Muslim mayor.

As investigators look into the two men’s ties with ISIS and their motivations, here is what we know about the situation.

Attack stemmed from anti-Muslim protest

On Saturday, an anti-Islam protest organized by right-wing influencer Jake Lang attracted about 20 people, with about 125 people coming to a counterprotest dubbed “Drive the Nazis Out of New York,” Tisch said. The protest was near Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence.

The groups stayed in their own designated areas, but tensions escalated when a protester associated with Lang’s group pepper-sprayed counterprotesters around 12:15 p.m., she said.

Twenty minutes later, a counterprotester later identified in court documents as Balat, “threw an ignited device toward the protest area,” which landed on a crosswalk, Tisch said. Video showed protesters and police quickly scatter to avoid the device.

“Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke as it traveled through the air before it struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers,” the commissioner said.

Balat then retrieved a second device from Kayumi before lighting it and starting to run, the complaint said. He dropped the second device on the street, where it appeared to emit smoke but also did not explode, according to Tisch.

Balat and Kayumi were arrested after the devices were thrown, Tisch said. On Monday, they were charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, using a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosive materials; unlawful possession of destructive devices; and interstate transportation and receipt of explosives, according to the complaint.

The anti-Islam protester accused of using pepper spray was also arrested, and three others were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct and obstructing traffic Tisch said. Mamdani said he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, were not home during the time of the protest.

Suspects are teens from Pennsylvania

Balat and Kayumi both made comments saying their actions were related to ISIS, according to authorities.

As Kayumi was being placed into an NYPD vehicle, an officer’s body-worn camera footage captured someone asking why he had done this, and he responded with “ISIS,” the complaint said.

After waiving his Miranda rights, Kayumi also told authorities he watched ISIS propaganda o