Oil prices surged and stock markets slid after hard-line Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen to succeed his late father as Iran’s supreme leader. His appointment on Monday, and new strikes on regional oil infrastructure, signaled that Iran was digging in 10 days into the war launched by the United States and Israel. Oil prices later fell, and the U.S. stock market closed higher, amid hope that the war with Iran may not last that long as world leaders discussed options. Khamenei is a secretive 56-year-old cleric and only the third supreme leader in the history of the Islamic Republic.
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Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
President Donald Trump promised that 2026 would be a bumper year for economic growth. Instead it's kicked off with job losses, rising gasoline prices and more uncertainty about America’s future. In his recent State of the Union address, Trump said "the roaring economy is roaring like never before.” The latest batch of data on jobs, gasoline prices and the stock market suggests otherwise. There's a gap between the boom that Trump has predicted and the results he's produced. And that could set the tone in this year’s midterm elections as he tries to defend Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
Bigger and bigger data centers are leading to proposals for massive electric power transmission lines, sometimes across hundreds of miles. These high-voltage power lines cost tens of billions of dollars a year and are the latest front line in the battle over tech giants' massive operations. Artificial intelligence advances are seen by President Donald Trump as critical to the nation’s economic and national security. But their energy needs are threatening to overwhelm the power grid and the transmission expansion is drawing opposition from landowners, conservationists, local officials, consumer advocates and states.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event with Environmental Protection Agency director Lee Zeldin announcing that the EPA will no longer regulate greenhouse gases, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The West Virginia Coal Hall of Fame, a joint initiative between the West Virginia Coal Mining Institute and the West Virginia Coal Association…
West Virginia lawmakers are pushing legislation under which electric power bills could increase and local control could decrease because of a …
“Mamaw can’t continue to go down that road.”
“I’m the American dream.”
