An Iranian flag is placed among the ruins of a police station struck Monday during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

U.S. President Donald Trump said “someone from within” Iran’s government might be best suited to take power once the U.S.-Israeli war on the country ends.

His remarks came four days into a war that has killed hundreds, nearly all of them in Iran, as well as many of the country’s top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Although Tehran has kept up its retaliatory missile and drone strikes against Israel and across the Gulf — disrupting travel and driving up oil prices — the pace of Iranian attacks appears to be slowing. However the conflict has also spread to Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel, prompting Israeli strikes in Beirut and additional troop deployments to southern Lebanon.

The spiraling nature of the war has raised questions about when and how it would end, and the Trump administration has given various objectives.

Here is the latest:

UAE’s stock markets to resume trading

The United Arab Emirates’ Capital Markets Authority said Tuesday that the country’s stock markets will reopen Wednesday following a two-day halt.

Authorities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi say that the Dubai Financial Market, Nasdaq Dubai, and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange were suspended due to Iran’s strikes on the Gulf nation.

UN says apparent strike on girls school in Iran may be a war crime

Iranian state media has reported that at least 165 people were killed and dozens of others were wounded Saturday by what Iran says was an airstrike on a girls school in the country’s south.

The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area, and the U.S. military said it was looking into the strikes.

Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday that the “devastating” airstrike may amount to war crimes if it is found to have targeted civilians or been carried out indiscriminately in violation of international law.

“Children, little girls, in the middle of the school day, at the beginning of the school day, being killed in this manner, backpacks with blood stains on them,” said Shamdasani.

The U.N. human rights chief called for an investigation into the airstrike.

Children among those killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon

Seven children have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the past two days, Lebanon’s health ministry said Tuesday.

In total, 40 people have been killed in Lebanon — including a Palestinian militant leader and a Hezbollah intelligence official — and 246 wounded in the new escalation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

On Monday, Hezbollah launched missiles toward Israel for the first time in more than a year, and Israel responded by bombarding southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut with strikes. No casualties have been reported from the Hezbollah attacks in Israel.

Crews tend to scorched cars and wreckage in the streets of central Israel

Israeli firefighters hosed down charred vehicles after Iranian missiles struck and, in some places, ignited fires on city streets Tuesday.

Missile and drone strikes — as well as the debris from projectiles intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome — have crashed down in central Israel. They’ve hit residential buildings and street-level property, sending shockwaves booming, damaging shopfronts and reducing some structures to rubble.

Iranian missiles set off air raid sirens and sent Israelis into shelters across the country, although the pace of attacks appeared to be slowing on Tuesday. Israel says it has intercepted most of the incoming strikes, but some missiles have landed, killing 11 people.

No deaths or injuries have been reported so far Tuesday.

Israel will begin reopening airspace for repatriation on Thursday

As governments race to evacuate citizens from the Middle East, Israel is preparing to fly home its citizens who are stranded abroad.

Transportation Minister Miri Regev said Ben-Gurion Airport will reopen for limited incoming flights around the clock starting early Thursday.

Israel’s airspace has been closed since Saturday, when the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began, although some land crossings remain open. Regev said thousands have returned that way.

Under the plan, one passenger flight per hour will be allowed in the first 24 hours, totaling about 5,000 people, with more later depending on security.

It is unclear whether only Israelis will be permitted on the flights, and no commercial departures leaving Israel have been approved.

Federal Reserve official is now unsure about rate cuts

Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said Tuesday that before the Iran war he had supported at least one interest rate cut this year as inflation slowly cooled. But now with the conflict pushing up oil and gas prices, he isn’t so sure.

“With the geopolitical events that we talked about, I just need to see,” he said at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York City, referring to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. “We need to get a lot more data in.” Kashkari is one of 12 voting members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee.

Kashkari’s comment is a sign of how the war threatens to push up inflation and therefore interest rates. The Fed raises its short-term rate — or keeps it unchanged — to cool the economy and combat inflation. A cut in the Fed’s rate, over time, can lower mortgages, auto loan rates, and other consumer borrowing costs.

Financial markets have forecast two rate cuts this year, according to futures prices, and Trump has loudly demanded many more reductions. But the odds of those two cuts occurring this year have fallen since the Iran war began.

State Department says it’s preparing military and charter flights for Americans who want to leave the Middle East

The State Department said Tuesday it is “actively securing” military and charter aircraft to fly Americans stranded in the Middle East to safety following the onset of U.S.-Israel military operations against Iran that has disrupted commercial air travel.

“The State Department is actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East,” said Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.

In a post on X, Johnson said the department has been in contact with nearly 3,000 Americans seeking to leave to region or seeking information about how to leave.

In Israel specifically, a second official said nearly 500 Americans had been in touch with the department about leaving and that it had assisted more than 130 in departing so far. Another 100 Americans are expected to leave Israel on Tuesday, the official said.

Israel’s medical response HQ prepares for Iran’s next missile strike

In a control room surrounded by large screens with maps of the country, medical emergency responders debriefed Tuesday on the latest strike.

The Magen David Adom headquarters in central Israel is the command center for dispatching medical teams to sites after they’ve been struck.

Their systems provide early warning when missiles are launched and they can sometimes identify locations where missiles have struck before calls come in.

Nadav Matzner, deputy spokesperson for Magen David Adom, says missiles coming from Iran to Israel take about 10-12 minutes whereas missiles from Lebanon to the center of Israel take a minute and a half.

He said so far during this war, missiles from Hezbollah in Lebanon have only struck the north.

Israeli officials pledge ‘zero tolerance’ for violating military censor after journalists arrested

A correspondent and cameraman with CNN’s Turkish-language affiliate were reporting Tuesday outside Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv when police detained them on live television. Israeli police said they were held “on suspicion of documenting a security facility” and later released.

Israeli officials vowed to crack down on reporters who allegedly “expose sensitive locations” while Iran strikes the country.

Israel’s military censor requires media to submit certain security-related information for review and in 2025 expanded its authority to mandate prior approval before publishing the locations of missile strikes.

In a statement after the arrests, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi pledged to “intensify the fight against foreign media broadcasting in violation of censorship directives.”

“We will not allow broadcasts that assist the enemy,” Ben-Gvir said, warning that journalists would face a “determined and forceful police response.”

Press freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, criticized Israel’s military censor during last year’s 12-day war with Iran, accusing it of suppressing an unfiltered view of the war.

Burhanettin Duran, the head of Turkey’s Communications Directorate, called Tuesday’s detentions “an attempt to conceal the truth.”

Trump lashes out at the UK: ‘This is not the age of Churchill’

The president revived his complaints about the U.K.’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, despite his administration previously supporting the move. The remote Indian Ocean archipelago is home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base.

“The U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have,” he said.

He also criticized the British for their windmills and immigration policies and said they need to open up drilling in the North Sea.

Trump claims oil prices will drop once Iran conflict ends

The president acknowledged that oil and gas prices were going to rise as the U.S. remains engaged in the ongoing Middle East conflict — yet argued that prices would drop once the war ends.

“We have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight Tuesday to about $3.11 in the United States, according to the American Automobile Association.

Democrats question Iran war’s cost, justification and planning

Ahead of a briefing by Trump administration officials to Congress, senior House Democrats are questioning what the costs of the Iran strikes will be and what impact they will have on the U.S. stockpile of munitions.

“The American people are entitled to clear answers including why this conflict began, what objectives justify continued military engagement, and what guardrails are in place to prevent a broader or protracted regional war,” said the five Democrats, who hold top positions on committees overseeing national security, in a letter to the Trump administration.

Lawmakers will receive a briefing later Tuesday as Trump tries to win over support for his campaign.

Trump says ‘we don’t want anything to do with Spain’

Trump said he wants to “cut off all trade with Spain” over NATO spending, adding “we don’t want anything to do with Spain.” Trump cited his ability to impose an embargo on Spain, based on the recent Supreme Court decision over the president’s ability to impose tariffs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed with the president’s claim that he could end trade with Spain.

Bessent told the president, “I agree that the Supreme Court reaffirmed your ability to implement an embargo.”

Trump says the US has ‘massive amounts of ammunition’

He said his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, “gave away a lot,” but said “we have plenty.”

He added that the U.S. had an “unlimited” supply of “middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we’re using in this war.”

Merz hopes Iran war will end soon

The German chancellor says that “we are hoping that the Israeli and the American army are doing the right things to bring this to an end and to have really a new government in place.”

Trump refutes that Israel forced hand on timing of Iran strike

“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Trump told reporters at the start of the Oval Office meeting with Merz.

The Trump administration’s shifting rationale for launching joint strikes with Israel against Iran is spurring criticism, including some from Trump’s MAGA base, that the White House was dragged into the conflict by Israel.

Some prominent allies of Trump stepped up their criticism that the U.S. was following Israel’s lead after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the U.S. decided to strike because, “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”

“And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio added.

Merz says he’s very happy to speak with Trump during these challenging times

“We are, on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away,” Merz said

during a visit at the White House on Tuesday.

The German chancellor said he also wants to talk with Trump about “our trade agreement, which I would like to be in place as soon as possible,” and the Ukraine war.

“There are too many bad guys in this world, actually,” Merz added.

Dispute over Iran disrupts US presidency of UN Security Council, diplomats say

Russia and China have blocked approval of the Trump administration’s program of work as it took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for March because it included a meeting on Iran, three diplomats familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday.

Traditionally, ambassadors from the 15 council nations meet on the first day of the presidency to approve work planned for the month and the president then holds a press conference to present it. That hasn’t happened.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private council negotiations.

The dispute was over a U.S.-proposed meeting on sanctions on Iran, which Russia and China claim were illegally reimposed last year, one diplomat said.

As the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, U.S. first lady Melania Trump presided over an approved Security Council meeting Monday on children in conflict.

Trump says the US has ‘knocked out’ some of Iran’s forces and systems

The president made the comment at the White House while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“They have no navy. It’s been knocked out. They have no air force. It’s been knocked out,” Trump said.

He added about Iran: “They have no air detection, that’s been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And, just about everything has been knocked out.”

‘Someone from within’ Iranian regime might be best choice to take power, Trump says

The U.S. president told reporters that ‘someone from within’ Iranian regime might be best choice to take power once the U.S.-Israel military campaign is completed.

In an exchange in the Oval Office Tuesday, Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran’s last shah, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over leadership in Iran.

“He looks like a very nice person, but it would seem to me that somebody that’s there that’s currently popular, if there’s such a person … we have people like that,” Trump said.

Trump noted that “some people like” Pahlavi but that he was not someone the administration had thought about too much as Iran’s next ruler.

Trump says ‘the big scale hitting goes now’ in Iran

Trump said the U.S. would continue its campaign in Iran during his Oval Office meeting with Merz. “The big scale hitting goes now.”

“They’re going to be in for a lot of hurt,” Trump said, “first we have to finish off the military.”

Trump says when it comes to new leaders for Iran, ‘the people we had in mind are dead’

The president told reporters at the White House that in addition to that group of people that he says the U.S. had been eying for leadership, “We have another group. They may be dead also.”

Trump said there is a “third wave” coming in but “we don’t know those people.”

The president said: “I guess the worst case would be do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don’t want that to happen.”