Oil prices surged and stocks tumbled worldwide in early trading on Thursday as Iran escalated shipping attacks in a critical tanker route.

Global crude spiked above $100 a barrel on Thursday before settling slightly below that key benchmark. The rise in oil prices defied a U.S. effort hours earlier to reassure markets with an announcement of the second-largest ever release from the nation’s petroleum reserve.

A selloff hit Wall Street as traders feared economic fallout from a potentially prolonged bout of elevated oil prices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 550 points, or 1.1%, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.8%.

Oil markets are suffering a major supply shortage due to an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of the global oil supply.

U.S. gasoline prices jumped to $3.59 on Thursday from $2.94 a month earlier, AAA data showed.

Indexes fell worldwide on Thursday as the jump in oil prices rippled through global markets. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index dropped 1.2%, while pan-European STOXX 600 index slipped 0.5%.

Global crude oil prices hovered at about $99 per barrel on Thursday morning, which marked a 7.5% increase from a day earlier. Since a month ago, oil prices have soared 43%.

In recent days, President Donald Trump has voiced mixed messages about how the White House may address oil prices and related cost woes.

Trump has indicated the war may end soon, but he has also threatened to escalate the conflict if Iran sought to impede tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

In a social media post on Thursday morning, Trump downplayed the rising oil prices, saying they would financially benefit the U.S.

“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. BUT, of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World,” Trump said.

In his first purported message, Mojtaba Khamenei, the newly installed supreme leader of Iran, on Thursday addressed the importance of the Strait of Hormuz.

Khamenei said the closure of the shipping route must be sustained as a “tool to pressure the enemy,” according to CNBC.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

MOSCOW — A court in Moscow in Thursday convicted 19 people of involvement in the 2024 shooting rampage in a Moscow concert hall that killed 149 people and wounded over 600 in one of the deadliest attacks in the capital in years.

A faction of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the March 22, 2024, massacre at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in which four gunmen shot people who were waiting for a show by a popular rock band and then set the building on fire.

All 19 defendants were handed lengthy prison terms: 15 were sentenced to life in prison, one was handed 22 1/2 years in prison, and three others were given 19 years and 11 months each.

The trial began in August 2025 in a military court, as is customary for terrorism charges, and took place behind closed doors, with the authorities citing security concerns.

President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have claimed, without presenting evidence, that Ukraine had a role in the attack. Kyiv has strongly denied any involvement.

The Investigative Committee, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency, has said that the attack had been “planned and carried out in the interests of the current leadership of Ukraine in order to destabilize political situation in our country.” It also noted the four suspected gunmen tried to flee to Ukraine afterward.

The four, all identified as citizens of Tajikistan, were arrested hours after the attack and later appeared in a Moscow court with signs of being severely beaten.

Those tried alongside them included three men who sold the suspected gunmen a car, a man they rented an apartment from, and 10 others accused of terrorist ties, according to independent Russian news site Mediazona.

Stryker, a medical technology company that makes a variety of products, including surgical tools and medical implants, announced Wednesday that it was hit by a cyberattack.

And while the company has provided few details about the extent of the attack, a pro-Iran hacking group, Handala, is claiming responsibility, saying in a post on X that it executed the cyberattack “in retaliation” for the ongoing war in the region.

The hacking group claimed that in the cyberattack, “over 200,000 systems, servers, and mobile devices have been wiped and 50 terabytes of critical data have been extracted.”

Stryker, the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based company, said in a statement Wednesday that it has “no indication of ransomware or malware and believe the incident is contained.”

The company did note that it was “experiencing a global network disruption to our Microsoft environment.”

“Our teams are working rapidly to understand the impact of the attack on our systems,” Stryker said. 

The company did not provide further details but assured “continuity measures in place to continue to support our customers and partners.”

The hacking group claimed in its statement that the deadly strike on a girls’ elementary school in Iran was in part the motivation behind the cyberattack.

The group posted that the attack was “in retaliation for the brutal attack on the Minab school and in response to ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure.”

Local officials say 168 people were killed in a Feb. 28 strike, in which several buildings connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were destroyed along with a nearby building housing a school for girls.

It has not been determined who was behind the strike, though the U.S. military was striking targets in Iran in the area near the school, people familiar with the findings told ABC News. An investigation is ongoing.

U.S. officials have not immediately commented on the cyberattack.

ABC News’ Mason Leath and Victor Ordonez contributed to this report.

The FBI warned police departments in California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News.

“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” according to the alert distributed at the end of February. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”

The warning came just as the Trump administration launched its ongoing assault against the Islamic Republic. Iran has been retaliating with drone strikes against targets throughout the Mideast.

A spokeswoman for the FBI office in LA declined to comment.

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

U.S. intelligence officials have also grown concerned in recent months about the expanding use of drones by Mexican drug cartels and the chance the technology could be used to attack American forces and personnel near the Mexican border.

“An uncorroborated report suggested that unidentified Mexican cartel leaders had authorized attacks using UAS (drones) carrying explosives against US law enforcement and US military personnel along the US-Mexico border,” according to a September 2025 bulletin reviewed by ABC News. “This type of attack against US personnel or interests inside the United States would be unprecedented but exemplifies a plausible scenario, although (cartels) typically avoid actions that would result in unwanted attention or responses from US authorities.”

ABC News contributor John Cohen, the former head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, said he is concerned about the possibility of drone warfare coming from both the Pacific and Mexico. 

“We know Iran has an extensive presence in Mexico and South America, they have relationships, they have the drones and now they have the incentive to conduct attacks,” Cohen said. “The FBI is smart for putting this warning out so that state and locals can be better able to prepare and respond to these types of threats. Information like this is critically important for law enforcement.”

While the FBI’s warning did not specify how or when vessels carrying attack drones could get close enough to the U.S. mainland, intelligence officials have long been concerned about equipment being pre-positioned – either on land or on ships at sea — in the event Israel or the U.S. struck Iran.

An inflation report to be released on Wednesday will provide the latest measure of price increases as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drives up gasoline costs and renews concerns about affordability.

The fresh data — which is set to detail prices in February — will show the cost burden borne by households weeks before the outbreak of war.

Economists expect prices to have increased 2.4% in February from a year earlier, which would leave the inflation rate unchanged from January. Inflation stands slightly higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.

A lackluster jobs report last week showed the U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, which marked a reversal of fortunes for the labor market and erased most of the job gains recorded in 2026.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% in January to 4.4% in February, the BLS said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.

Sluggish hiring has coincided with elevated inflation, threatening a period of “stagflation.”

Those economic headwinds helped set the conditions before the outbreak of war with Iran, which spiked oil prices and risked price increases for a host of diesel-fuel transported goods.

U.S. crude oil prices hovered at about $86 per barrel on Tuesday, surging more than 30% since a month earlier.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. soared to $3.53 on Tuesday from $2.92 a month prior, AAA data showed.

Still, the overall economic picture remains mixed.

A government report in February on gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at a tepid annualized pace of 1.4% over the final three months of 2025. That reading indicated a dramatic cooldown from the strong annualized growth of 4.4% recorded in the previous quarter, U.S. Commerce Department data showed.

The Iran war threatens to slow U.S. economic growth since oil-driven price increases could weigh on consumers and businesses, analysts previously told ABC News.

The potential combination of higher inflation and slower growth could also pose a challenge for the Fed, putting pressure on both sides of its dual mandate to manage prices and maintain maximum employment.

If the Fed opts to lower borrowing costs, it could spur growth but risk higher inflation. On the other hand, the choice to raise interest rates may slow price increases but risks a cooldown of economic performance.

The central bank held interest rates steady at its most recent meeting in January, ending a string of three consecutive quarter-point rate cuts. Policymakers will make their next interest-rate decision on March 18.

An officer responding to a report of a burglary at a residence in Baltimore was injured when a suspect opened fire on authorities from inside the home, according to police.

The shooting suspect is dead, according to the Baltimore Police Department.

The incident occurred shortly before noon Tuesday at a residence on the 6200 block of Park Heights Avenue, according to police.

“When officers arrived, they were immediately met with gunfire from the suspect firing from inside of a house,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said during a press briefing.

A 36-year-old officer was shot in the leg and transported to an area hospital, where he is in stable condition, officials said.

Responding SWAT officers “neutralized” the shooting suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene, Worley said.

A firearm was recovered from the home, he said.

During the incident, a woman jumped out of the window of the residence, Worley said. The suspect also held a gun to the head of a second woman at the window before he was shot, Worley said, referring to it as a “hostage” situation that was quickly resolved.

“He was firing on our officers. As soon as our SWAT team got there, was able to take cover and our SWAT sniper was able to take the shot, he took the shot,” Worley said.

The suspect was related to the people in the house, Worley said. Both women have been transported to a hospital, he said.

The police department’s special investigations response team is investigating, the commissioner said.

President Donald Trump said that he and Vice President JD Vance are “philosophically a little bit different” when it comes to U.S. war with Iran after ABC News previously reported that Vance internally was apprehensive about the strikes late last month.

When asked during his Monday evening news conference in Florida if there were any disagreements between him and Vance on action against Iran, Trump said he didn’t “think so.”

“We get along very well on this,” Trump said. “He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic. But I felt it was something we had to do. I didn’t feel we had a choice. If we didn’t do it, they would have done it to us.”

Trump’s comments about their differences on Iran come after ABC News reported that Vance, who has largely opposed U.S. intervention abroad, made his reservations about the strikes against Iran known internally, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Once it became clear that the decision had been made to move forward with the strikes, Vance shifted his focus to supporting the military operation, a source told ABC News.

This is not the first time Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, has expressed concerns internally about possible U.S. foreign military intervention.

Last year, in the Signal group chat discussing the U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen that a journalist was inadvertently invited to join, Vance appeared to break with Trump and questioned whether the president recognized that a unilateral U.S. attack on the Houthis to keep international shipping lanes open was at odds with his tough talk about European nations paying their share of such efforts.

A few days before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, Vance told The Washington Post that there was “no chance” of a drawn-out war in Iran if the U.S. moved forward with the strikes.

Vance reiterated that same sentiment in a recent interview with Fox News, but also added that the operation against Iran “could go for a lot longer.”

“There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective. What is different about President Trump, and it’s frankly different about both Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he’s not going to let his country go to war unless there’s a clearly defined objective,” Vance told Fox News.

“He’s defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long-term to never trying to rebuild the nuclear capability. It’s pretty clear. It’s pretty simple, and I think that means that we’re not going to get into the problems that we’ve had with Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said.

Ahead of his second term, Trump campaigned on “America First” policies, which attracted his MAGA base. After the strikes on Iran, there has been criticism from within his base — including former political adviser Steve Bannon, who called the it “a mistake not to put America first.”

Trump said Monday that the U.S. is making “major” progress in achieving its military goals and that the operation is “ahead of our initial timeline by a lot.”

“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they’re pretty well complete. We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out very completely,” Trump said.

LONDON — As the United States and Israel intensify their aerial assault and continue to urge Iranians to overthrow the government, Iranians inside the country have expressed mixed feelings, describing growing fear of the strikes and worries that the war will escalate further following the appointment of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son as the new supreme leader.

Israel attacked oil depots on Sunday, igniting huge fires that smothered Tehran in thick, choking smoke, amid what residents have said is the heaviest bombing of the war so far.

Residents in the capital told ABC News the streets were quiet on Monday, with many people having left or else sheltering indoors fearful of airstrikes. The toxic smoke from the oil depot fire had dissipated somewhat because of rain, they said, but still lingered. There were many checkpoints set up by government forces and a heavy security presence around the city.

ABC News is not identifying the people by their real names over concerns they could face retaliation.

“The city is almost emptied out. Shops are open hoping against hope for customers. But many have left Tehran,” a man, who ABC News is calling Amir, said Monday. “It’s mostly silence unless there’s an attack.”

An internet blackout imposed by the regime makes it difficult to communicate with people inside Iran, but some people are succeeding, connecting for a few hours by Starlink and VPNs.

Golshan Fathi wrote on social media that bakeries are packed and that the city was still feeling the effects of the huge oil depot fire.

“The air is heavy,” she wrote. “Tehran smells of smoke, of metal and fuel and a city trapped under a giant glass dome. The streets are emptier than ever, but the city isn’t calm. In cities gripped by fear, calm is just a façade.”

Iranians were also digesting the announcement of Mojtaba Khamenei as the successor to his late father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening day of the strikes by Israel and the U.S. A group of senior Iranian officials and clerics, called the Council of Experts, said it had voted to select Mojtaba, who is seen as a hard-line figure. He is likely to continue his father’s unyielding approach.

The residents who spoke to ABC News are among the educated, middle class. They have been critical of the government and expressed shock at Mojtaba’s appointment, saying they feared it meant a compromise to end the war was less likely and that the regime may act more violently inside Iran.

Amir said his more liberal circle felt caught between the regime and the war unleashed by the U.S. and Israel.

“Most of us feel entrapped between an oppressive regime and warmonger nutters in Israel and the U.S. It’s all very tiring for our agency, our lives,” Amir said. “The hardliners have succeeded in implanting their guy mostly because at the time of war civil society is sidelined. It’s frustrating.”

Thousands of Iranians on Monday gathered for rallies in different cities to celebrate the new supreme leader’s appointment. Most observers say the regime retains a hardcore base of conservative, religious supporters, despite the large-scale protests that shook the country in January. Those protests were crushed in a crackdown by security forces that killed thousands, according to rights groups.

Signs and posters cheering Mojtaba’s appointment have gone up around Tehran, according to Fathi. “The military presence is much more visible than in previous days; plainclothes agents, Basij [paramilitary] forces, and anti-riot units are stationed at key points,” she wrote.

More than a thousand people have been killed in Iran since the U.S. and Israel began bombing on Feb. 28, according to Iranian officials. Over 160 schoolgirls were killed in a missile strike that hit a school in the southern city of Minab, according to local authorities. Multiple media investigations, including by The New York Times and Reuters, have suggested the U.S. military was responsible for the strike, although President Donald Trump has sought to blame Iran.

Other Iranians who spoke to ABC News expressed clear support for the American-Israeli war and the strikes, which have also targeted key institutions of repression, including prisons and security service headquarters.

“Everyone in Iran rejoiced over Khamenei’s death, especially families whose children were killed in protests in the last two months,” one woman, who asked to use the alias B16, told ABC News. She said she was “very happy about this war and the attacks by America and Israel,” seeing it as a “hope for freedom from the evil of the Islamic Republic.”

Some Iranians said their fear now is that the war could devastate the country but still leave the regime intact and more violent toward dissent.

“I think mostly people are worried about a failed state situation, that infrastructure is gone and the regime is in place,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, an activist based in the U.S. who has worked to set up technologies to help Iranians evade government censorship. “That would be the worst combination if it happens.”

President Donald Trump said on Monday he doesn’t “know enough” about the strike on an Iranian elementary school that Iran says killed at least 168 people, including dozens of children, but that he was “willing to live” with the findings of a U.S. investigation into the incident.

A newly surfaced video appears to show a U.S.-made missile, a Tomahawk, hitting a building in Iran adjacent to the girls’ school, experts told ABC News.

Trump suggested Monday it could have been a Tomahawk fired by Iran.

“I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, it’s sold and used by other countries, you know that,” Trump said. “And whether it’s Iran, who also has some Tomahawks, they wish they had more, but, whether it’s Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk — a Tomahawk is very generic, it’s sold to other countries. But that’s being investigated right now.”

The U.S. makes and sells Tomahawks to its closest allies, including the U.K. and Australia. But it has never sold the technology to Iran or other adversaries. While other countries like Russia use cruise missiles, only the U.S. makes Tomahawks, as the missile experts say appears to be seen in the video of the school strike. 

Israel has already said it wasn’t operating in the area of the school bombing. 

The president faced questions Monday on the Feb. 28 incident during a news conference at Trump National Doral Miami, including his comment over the weekend that Iran was behind it.

“Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing just behind the president on the plane, said the matter was under investigation and that “only side that targets civilians is Iran.”

But pressed on those remarks, Trump said on Monday, “I just don’t know enough about it.”

“I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are –are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us,” Trump said.

“But I will certainly, whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report,” the president continued.

The U.S. military was striking targets in the country last Saturday in an area where an elementary school was hit and dozens of children were killed, two people familiar with the initial findings previously told ABC News.

An analysis of satellite imagery by ABC News suggests the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab was near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps compound but had been separated from it more than decade ago. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, rejected Trump’s claim that Iran was behind the hit on the girls’ elementary school.

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

A jury has found the Alexander brothers guilty on all counts in their federal sex trafficking trial in New York City.

Jury deliberations began Thursday for the former real estate titans, Oren and Alon Alexander, 38-year-old twins, along with their brother, Tal Alexander, 39, who have denied sexually assaulting anyone or running a sex trafficking conspiracy, as prosecutors have charged. They pleaded not guilty.

Throughout the five-week trial, 11 women testified that they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers. At least eight of the women claimed they were drugged by one of the Alexanders. 

“These are chilling, reprehensible, and unacceptable acts,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a statement following the verdict. “We commend the victims for their courage in coming forward and testifying at the trial. They bravely overcame the pain of reliving the abuses inflicted upon them and, as a result, prevented others from becoming victims.”   

The brothers’ federal sentencing has been set for Aug. 6.

Oren and Tal Alexander gained notoriety in New York’s luxury real estate market through their company, Alexander Group, and have been under federal investigation alongside Alon since late 2024.

They have been accused of luring women to nightclubs and parties, then drugging and sexually assaulting them.

In his closing statement, federal prosecutor Andrew Jones said there is “crushing evidence” that the brothers “masqueraded as party boys when really they were predators” who committed an “array of federal sex offenses.”

Jones recounted the graphic accounts of the alleged victims and said the wealthy brothers had a “playbook” luring women with exclusive parties, yachts and luxury travel so they could assault them.

“Once they had their victims where they wanted them, the defendants assaulted them using force, using drugs, or using both,” Jones said. 

Then, the brothers allegedly bragged about their exploits in blog posts with titles like “It’s not rape if… you use her tears as lube” and “It’s not rape if… she secretly wants it.”

Jones told the jury the allegations are corroborated “by the sheer number of other victims who testified here — women who never met each other, who have each led different lives, in different professions, sometimes in different cities. But they had one horrific thing in common — they were each raped by these men. And they described near identical experiences of their assaults.”

During closing arguments, defense attorney Howard Srebnick conceded the brothers could be “obnoxious” and their conduct “inappropriate,” but he told the jury, “Nobody was being assaulted, nobody had been trafficked.”

Srebnick urged jurors to reject the government’s case against his client, Alon Alexander, insisting prosecutors failed to meet their burden of proof.

In her closing argument, Deanna Paul said the brothers “are not mobsters,” though sometimes they acted like “entitled a——-.”

A defense attorney for Tal Alexander, Paul argued that prosecutors have asked the jury to “connect dots that really aren’t there.”

In his summations, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo — Oren Alexander’s attorney — suggested to the jury that the victims in this case were dissatisfied with their encounters with the Alexanders, which motivated them to testify in this trial.