Oil and natural gas prices jumped sharply Tuesday as global energy markets came under mounting strain after shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz stalled amid the ongoing U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump said Tuesday that Iran’s military capabilities have been largely neutralized, after Israel confirmed it had killed a senior commander in Iran’s elite Quds Force during ongoing strikes on Tehran.

A tense calm has returned to Bolivia’s western city of El Alto after riot police pushed back crowds trying to reach an airplane carrying banknotes that crashed late Friday, killing at least 22 people.

The U.S. military has struck 1,700 Iranian targets within the first 72 hours of the expanding conflict, according to a Tuesday update from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), signaling a sharp acceleration in the pace of operations.

A powerful earthquake struck off Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Tuesday, Christians told Worthy News, forcing residents to flee their homes in several areas.

The European Union struggled to remain united Tuesday as leaders of the 27-nation bloc debated how to respond to ongoing U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran.

Senior U.S. naval commanders are warning that China’s rapidly expanding submarine force presents a mounting strategic challenge, as Beijing develops next-generation ballistic missile submarines capable of striking larger portions of the U.S. mainland from waters closer to its own shores, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed March 3 that one of Iran’s key uranium enrichment sites sustained new damage during the ongoing joint U.S.–Israeli military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

The United States has closed its embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia and suspended operations at its embassy in Kuwait as Iranian retaliatory strikes continued across the Gulf region.

Iran was weighing its options Tuesday after U.S. forces said they had destroyed much of its navy as part of the expanding war between the United States, Israel, and the Islamic Republic.

Iran declared 40 days of public mourning after confirming that 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed during Israeli and U.S. strikes on his compound in downtown Tehran.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom President Donald J. Trump calls “secretary of war,” said Monday that Operation Epic Fury against Iran was “the most lethal, most complex, and most precise aerial operation in history,” though he declined to rule out the possibility of American ground forces becoming involved.

Iran has rejected negotiations with the United States as military escalation spread across the Middle East and into the eastern Mediterranean after the U.S. and Israel began striking the Islamic Republic early Saturday.

Three U.S. service members were killed and five seriously wounded in an Iranian counterattack as fighting between the United States and Iran intensified, officials confirmed Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated that rapidly escalating tensions in the Middle East could postpone the next round of U.S.-brokered peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, as Moscow condemned recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on its ally Iran.