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Oil prices surged and shares slid as military conflict in the Middle East looked set to last weeks, sending investors flocking to the relative safety of the dollar and gold reut.rs/46ycd7c

Airline shares plunged, with Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific, Australia's Qantas Airways, Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines down more than 5% after the US and Israel launched weekend strikes on Iran, disrupting travel and sending oil prices surging reut.rs/3OKhu5w

Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack US forces first, two people familiar with the matter said reut.rs/46ybyTg

Kuwait intercepted hostile drones on March 2, the third consecutive day of Iranian retaliatory strikes on neighboring Gulf states in response to US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic reut.rs/3MChLqH

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that Iran “has always been open to diplomacy,” following U.S. and Israeli air strikes over the weekend that killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several top military officials.

A drone strike hit Britain's Royal Air Force base of Akrotiri in Cyprus overnight, causing limited damage and no casualties, the island's president and Britain's defense ministry said reut.rs/4rNRFQP

Israel launched new air strikes targeting Iran and expanded its assault to include attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, as Tehran said it launched a new wave of missiles that had ‘opened the great gates of fire’ on Israel. Follow our live coverage: reut.rs/46DlV8u

Betting payouts following US attacks on Iran have thrown new scrutiny on prediction markets, which took wagers on the timing of bombing and removal of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power reut.rs/4sjvsKa

LIVE: International Atomic Energy Agency emergency meeting youtube.com/live/ePD-SUK...

LIVE: Aftermath of Iranian missile impact site in Israel youtube.com/live/CZrKNql...

Saudi Arabia's state oil giant Aramco shut its Ras Tanura refinery after it was hit by a drone, an industry source said, an apparent escalation on the third day of strikes across the region launched by Tehran in response to the US-Israeli attack on Iran reut.rs/4u4FNeK

British foreign minister Yvette Cooper said that her team was looking at all options, including evacuation, to help hundreds of thousands of UK citizens leave Gulf countries which are now being targeted by Iran reut.rs/4r488Py

An eyewitness video showed a building ablaze and cars smothered in debris in Beirut in the early hours of March 2, as Israel announced airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital

BREAKING: Cyprus airport has been evacuated after a radar detected a suspect object. Paphos airport is about 37 miles from Britain's RAF Akrotiri, which was hit by an unmanned drone overnight reut.rs/3MFMnaO

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz faces a delicate task when he visits Washington for a meeting with President Trump, now overshadowed by the US-Israeli attack reut.rs/4cWdIA3

Iranian newspaper headlines declared the 'martyrdom' of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as shops across Tehran remained closed

⚠️ Shippers are avoiding the Strait of Hormuz, leaving Middle East exports at a near standstill and raising talk of $100 oil. We dig into the geopolitical risk premium with energy columnist Ron Bousso on the Morning Bid podcast reut.rs/408hsqD

Footage shows a military aircraft falling from the sky in Kuwait's Al Jahra area, accompanied by a parachuting pilot, as conflict escalates across the region following Iranian strikes

A grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is likely to figure prominently in the deliberations of the clerics who will determine who replaces Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader reut.rs/3MSW6KU

Rising US casualties in the conflict with Iran could challenge President Donald Trump's ability to maintain political support for the war, Jonathan Panikoff, Director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said

That feels like a Good-Bad-Bad news story..Good that they are safe, Bad that there was insufficient air control communication to allow them to be wrongly targeted and Bad that they are so susceptible to being shot down by Air Defence systems - are US pilots too used to operating in air dominance?

Glad the pilots are safe. Each F15-E costs at least $100 million. Question for the day: How much healthcare could be provided to taxpayers for the cost of 3 fighter jets?

Downing our own aircraft seems like something from the Twilight Zone.

Real news: Trump's military doesn't know where they are or what they are doing.

President Donald Trump pressed ahead with military strikes despite private warnings from senior aides that the escalation could be difficult to contain and carry political risks for Republicans in November's midterm elections reut.rs/4aTS3pC

The price of oil and gas jumped when markets opened on March 2 as the war widened across the Middle East. Oil supplies have already been disrupted as tanker operators fear attacks in the Gulf, but as Elena Casas explains, the real fear is that bombing could hit critical infrastructure

The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in Beirut killing Hussein Makled, who served as the head of Hezbollah's intelligence headquarters reut.rs/4r4kxD6