Live Updates: Oil and Gas Prices Jump as Iran War’s Economic Cost Climbs

 

Live Updates: Oil and Gas Prices Jump as Iran War’s Economic Cost Climbs

 

The price of oil surged to more than $90 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices rose again. Israeli airstrikes pummeled Tehran and Lebanon, and President Trump’s demand for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” raised the prospect of an extended war.

 

Emmett Lindner David E. Sanger Adam Rasgon Euan Ward and Richard Pérez-Peña

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/06/world/iran-war-trump-israel-lebanon

 

Here’s the latest.

Oil and gasoline prices jumped again on Friday, a sign of how the world, including the United States, will feel the economic pain of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, as bombing in Iran and Lebanon continued unabated.

 

Futures of the domestic benchmark crude, which traded around $67 a week ago, topped $90 on Friday for the first time in more than two years, and are now more than 30 percent above their prewar level. The average price of unleaded gasoline in the United States reached $3.32 per gallon, up 11 percent since the war began. The concurrent increases, which showed no sign of easing, could be a serious shock to an already-slowing world economy.

 

Israeli officials on Friday said their forces had destroyed an underground bunker that had been used by Iran’s supreme leader before he died last week, part a fresh wave of heavy strikes on Tehran. And President Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran, the most uncompromising goal he has set so far for the war, and one that could portend a much longer conflict in the Middle East.

 

The Israeli military also pounded the southern outskirts of Beirut and issued more evacuation warnings in Lebanon as it intensified its campaign there against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. About 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled their homes since the bombing began, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated.

 

“We civilians are paying for the price of war,” said Mohamed Hjoula, 35, who had taken refuge with about 40 family members on Beirut’s waterfront promenade after leaving their homes.

 

Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social that there “will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” highlighted his shifting war aims. Days earlier, Mr. Trump had told The Atlantic, “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.”

 

The president made the post ruling out compromise after Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said earlier that some countries had begun what he called “mediation efforts,” without elaborating on who was involved. Iran’s intelligence ministry has reached out to the C.I.A. through intermediaries to discuss terms for ending the war, according to officials briefed on the outreach.

 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps launched a wave of drones and missiles at Israel, according to a statement from the force reported by IRNA, the country’s state news agency. Air-raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv, and the Israeli military said that it had detected missile launches from Iran, though there were no immediate reports of major damage.

 

Here’s what else we’re covering:

 

New attacks: The Israeli military said it had struck more than 400 targets in western Iran on Friday, including missile launchers and drone storage sites.

 

Bunker strike: Iranian state television reported attacks on a compound in Tehran where the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Israel published video showing a series of airstrikes in roughly the same area, saying that its military had destroyed an underground bunker in the compound. The New York Times reviewed satellite imagery showing fresh damage to buildings at the site.

 

Gulf nations: As Iran’s retaliatory strikes hit U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, Qatar’s foreign ministry said Tehran had carried out an attack on buildings in neighboring Bahrain where members of the Qatari Navy were, but reported no injuries. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said that it had intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles launched toward a military complex south of the capital, Riyadh, while the United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted nine ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones on Friday.

 

Oil and the economy: Stocks fell sharply as trading opened in New York as the surge in oil and gas prices driven by the conflict set off fears of resurgent inflation. A senior official in Qatar warned in a Financial Times interview of lengthy disruptions to energy production, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed because of attacks.

 

Evacuations: The State Department is battling accusations from diplomats and travelers who say the Trump administration endangered U.S. citizens by beginning a war without adequate plans for helping Americans leave the Middle East.

 

Death toll: Hundreds of people have been killed in Iran since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, according to the Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, including at least 175, many of them children, who died in the bombing of a girls’ elementary school. More than 200 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds

 

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds

 

Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

 

Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent

Fri 6 Mar 2026 14.00 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/06/humanity-heating-planet-faster-than-ever-before-study-finds

 

Humanity is heating the planet faster than ever before, a study has found.

 

Climate breakdown is occurring more rapidly with the heating rate almost doubling, according to research that excludes the effect of natural factors behind the latest scorching temperatures.

 

It found global heating accelerated from a steady rate of less than 0.2C per decade between 1970 and 2015 to about 0.35C per decade over the past 10 years. The rate is higher than scientists have seen since they started systematically taking the Earth’s temperature in 1880.

 

“If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5C (2.7F) limit of the Paris agreement before 2030,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the study.

 

Extreme heat in recent years has been pushed higher by natural fluctuations – such as solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, and the weather pattern El Niño – that have led scientists to question whether startling temperature readings are outliers or the result of an increase in global heating.

 

The researchers applied a noise-reduction method to filter out the estimated effect of nonhuman factors in five major datasets that scientists have compiled to gauge the Earth’s temperature. In each of them, they found an acceleration in global heating emerged in 2013 or 2014.

 

“There is now pretty widespread – if not quite universal – agreement that there has been a detectable acceleration in warming in recent years,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, who was not involved in the study. “However, it remains unclear how much of the additional warming over the past decade in particular is a forced response versus unforced variability.”

 

The blanket of carbon pollution smothering the Earth has heated the planet by about 1.4C since preindustrial levels, compounded by a recent drop in cooling sulphur pollutants that had provided temporary relief. A study Hausfather co-authored last year also found climate breakdown has speeded up, but had the rate slightly slower than the new study, at 0.27C a decade.

 

“Either way, this represents a significant increase in the rate of warming,” said Hausfather. “[This] should be worrying as the world hurtles toward crossing 1.5C later this decade.”

 

The researchers said the acceleration fell within the scope of climate models. Based on temperatures from one of the datasets analysed, supplied by the EU’s Copernicus service, the world will cross the 1.5C threshold for long-term warming this year if the rate of warming does not slow. Analysis of the other four datasets showed a breach in 2028 or 2029.

 

Claudie Beaulieu, a climate scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz, said the findings imply that the window for limiting warming even to 2C above preindustrial levels would “narrow substantially” if faster warming persists.

 

“An important caveat, however, is that the acceleration may prove temporary,” said Beaulieu, who has published on the topic but was not involved in the new study. She added that the strong El Niño of 1998 also produced a period of apparent anomalous warming.

 

“The relative slowdown that followed was interpreted as evidence of a pause in global warming,” she said. “Continued monitoring over the next several years will be essential to determine whether the accelerated warming rate identified here represents a lasting shift or a transient feature of natural variability.”

 

Climate scientists suspect global heating of 1.5C-2C may be enough to trigger near-apocalyptic “tipping points” that play out over decades and centuries, with the chances of catastrophe increasing at higher levels of warming. They are more confident about the damage climate breakdown will do in the short-term, such as making heatwaves hotter and allowing storms to unleash more rain.

 

The past three years have been the hottest three-year period on record, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed in January. Scientists have continued to log record-breaking levels of planet-heating pollution while raising fears that the planet’s carbon sinks – natural systems that remove CO2 from the atmosphere – may be starting to fail.

 

“How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels to zero,” said Rahmstorf.

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They Told Us This Wasn't Regime Change

 

On March 6, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that there will be "no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER," marking a significant escalation in the week-long military conflict.

 

Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ as bombs pound Tehran and Beirut

On March 6, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that there will be "no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER," marking a significant escalation in the week-long military conflict.

 

Key Developments (March 6, 2026)

Trump's Demand: In a series of social media posts, Trump ruled out negotiations, stating that following a surrender, the U.S. and its allies would help select "GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s)" to rebuild the country.

Airstrikes in Tehran: The Israeli Air Force launched a "broad-scale wave of strikes" on regime infrastructure in Tehran, reportedly destroying a command bunker used by leadership with 50 fighter jets.

Airstrikes in Beirut: Israeli warplanes heavily bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs, specifically targeting Hezbollah strongholds following unprecedented mass evacuation orders for the entire Dahiyeh district.

Leadership Crisis: The conflict follows the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the initial wave of strikes on February 28, 2024.

Humanitarian Impact: Since the war began, over 1,300 people have been killed in Iran and hundreds in Lebanon, while nearly 100,000 have fled Tehran and over 300,000 have been displaced in Lebanon.

Global Economy: Oil prices spiked, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rising nearly 14% to approximately $92 a barrel.

 

Regional and Domestic Reactions

Iran’s Response: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that "mediation efforts" by unspecified countries have begun, though Iranian officials explicitly rejected Trump's demand to help choose their next leader.

U.S. Operations: The White House, via Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, labeled the campaign "Operation Epic Fury," estimating a duration of four to six weeks.

Regional Widening: Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks on Israel and Arab nations hosting U.S. bases, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.