Trump Says Iran Attacks May Last Weeks With Tehran Defiant (Bloomberg)

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President Donald Trump said the bombing campaign against Iran could last for weeks and called on the nation’s leaders to capitulate, while the Islamic Republic’s security chief ruled out negotiations.

The conflict continued to reverberate across the Middle East on Monday, with blasts heard across Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as states intercepted Iranian missiles launched in response to US-Israeli strikes. Oil surged the most in four years and airlines suspended flights, causing major disruptions at some of the world’s busiest airports.

The US said three fighter jets crashed in Kuwait due to an apparent friendly fire incident. Israel expanded its campaign to Beirut after coming under attack from Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, who are allied with Tehran.

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Trump’s Iran Strikes Usher in an Era of Unrestrained American Power (Bloomberg)

The targeted attacks and killing of a sitting head of state mark a departure from decades of US policy.

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President Donald Trump has long said the US is done with nation-building. Now, he’s embraced a form of intervention that hearkens back to an earlier American era: openly targeting adversaries’ leaders for death or arrest while offering few details about how the US intends to manage the aftermath.

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Just a few weeks ago, US forces seized Venezuela’s president in a surprise raid from the air.

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By ordering strikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this weekend, Trump has gone even further. Scores have already been killed, including three US troops so far. Hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones have hit countries across the region, while American and Israeli forces continue their attacks. The escalation and its unpredictable consequences are already testing oil prices and investor tolerance for geopolitical risk.

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The message is unmistakable: almost no foreign adversary should feel secure, except perhaps those that have nuclear weapons. Rivals will have to contend with a more unrestrained form of American power — one that critics say shatters the legal restraints Washington has long demanded of others.

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What's Next: Iran Switches to Survival Mode After Killing of Khamenei (Bloomberg)

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Tehran had a succession plan in place for the peaceful death of its Supreme Leader. Can it keep control now the country’s at war?

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Social media videos over the weekend showed Iranians in some parts of the country celebrating Khamenei’s death. But there's so far no sign of any efforts to “take over” the government, as President Donald Trump has urged Iranians to do.

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Security in towns and cities across the country has been tightened with reports from residents in the capital Tehran of large numbers of volunteer paramilitaries and armed police in the streets.

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The country’s remaining top political and security officials appear to be making decisions having spent the months since Israel and the US’s air strikes in June preparing for the possibility of war and Khamenei’s potential assassination.

Below: Smoke plumes rise following missile strikes in Tehran on March 1.Photographer: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Pentagon Punishes Anthropic

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Latest in AI and Defense:  US Bars Anthropic Products From Agencies, Contractors Following Pentagon Dustup (Bloomberg)
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The Pentagon declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk after President Donald Trump directed US government agencies to stop using its products, capping a feud between the artificial intelligence giant and defense officials over safeguards on its technology. The firm has insisted that Claude not be used for mass surveillance against Americans or in fully autonomous weapons operations.

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Anthropic hasn’t received any direct communication from the government on the status of negotiations, and will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court, the company said in a statement on Friday.

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Since its founding, Anthropic has positioned itself as a company focused on the responsible use of AI with a goal of avoiding catastrophic harms from the technology. That stance had thrust Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei into a high-stakes confrontation with Hegseth, who has vowed to root out “woke” practices at the sprawling agency he leads.

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Before the deadline arrived, President Trump wrote on social media that he was ordering federal agencies to drop Anthropic, warning that if the company failed to cooperate with the handover it would face “major civil and criminal consequences” that he didn’t specify.

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Perspective: The Pentagon Is Thwarting American Genius (Bloomberg Opinion - Gautam Mukunda) 

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The Pentagon is supposed to wage war on America’s enemies, not its greatest assets and most important values.

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Climate of Hope

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Uplifting Read of the Day: Don’t Look Now, but the Green Transition Is Still Happening (New York Times Opinion)
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In January a total of seven gas-powered cars were sold in all of Norway. This year Pakistan expects that parts of the country will get more electricity from decentralized rooftop solar than from its entire electricity grid during parts of the day, writes Times opinion writer David Wallace-Wells. 

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In the United States, where we often tell ourselves we are in the grips of climate backlash and fossil fuel retrenchment, Texas has been setting solar records through frigid February, around 90 percent of new power capacity installed anywhere in the nation last year was green, and the share of renewables is expected to be even higher next year, Wallace-Wells writes.

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There is more green stuff being installed than ever, and judged simply as a global infrastructure project, the volume is pretty staggering. Even in Trump’s United States, which has been behaving in many ways like a petrostate, more than 92 percent of utility-scale electricity capacity planned for 2026 is green, Wallace-Wells writes.

Wallace-Wells concludes: "If the political mood has darkened, one last data point shines out to me like a beacon: In 2026, the world may well spend more on green energy in total than it devotes to military spending. And if not this year, it seems safe to say, it will probably happen soon."

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What I'm Reading

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Gun Violence Hits Austin: Texas Bar Shooting Leaves 3 Dead and 14 Wounded as FBI Investigates Possible Terrorism (Associated Press)
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Police say officers in Austin shot and killed the gunman in the attack. The FBI says the shooting is being investigated as a potential act of terrorism.

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There have been at least two other high-profile shootings in Austin’s Sixth Street entertainment district within the past five years, including one in the summer of 2021 that left 14 people wounded, according to the AP.

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Inflation Won't Go Away: US Producer Prices Rise More Than Forecast on Services (Bloomberg)

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Consecutive months of firm wholesale-price readings add to evidence of slow progress toward beating inflation. Higher duties on imported materials have encouraged many producers to raise prices or find other cost savings to protect margins.

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Economy Fact Check: Trump’s “Factory Boom” Might Be a Bust (Politico) 

Industry data shows that much of the recent surge in construction jobs is tied to data centers and the power infrastructure that supports them, not a wave of new factories backed by fresh investment pledges Trump has secured. 

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That matters because factories tend to employ far more people than data centers, one of the main reasons communities have been more receptive to the former setting up shop in their towns.

Inflation remains elevated and housing construction has softened, but the administration has pointed to rising construction employment as one of the clearest signs that Trump’s trade and industrial policies are bearing fruit. In reality, many new manufacturing investments that Trump has helped secure are in early planning stages, meaning that the factory jobs that could reshape communities are likely years away. 

That hasn’t stopped Trump from repeatedly using construction jobs numbers to tout economic revitalization, as he did during Tuesday’s State of the Union address. 

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In Memoriam: Iris Cantor, Philanthropist and Art Collector, Dies at 95 (New York Times)

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She and her husband, the financier B. Gerald Cantor, amassed one of the largest private collections of Rodin artworks, donating much of it to museums around the world.

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🔊 Dive Deeper: The Daily Read Podcast just dropped—and it’s packed with an AI-powered breakdown of today’s biggest headlines. We go beyond the scroll with the key takeaways, smart context, and the “why it matters” behind each story, so you can stay ahead in less time. Listen now on Spotify or  Apple Podcasts.

Future of NYC Flying: Inside the Huge New Terminal That Will Transform JFK Airport (New York Times)

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The 2.6-million-square-foot Terminal One, part of a multibillion-dollar redevelopment of Kennedy Airport, will be nearly as large as the Empire State Building.  That will make it bigger than JPMorgan Chase’s new headquarters on Park Avenue and more than triple the size of the new train hub beneath Grand Central Terminal.

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It’s so massive that it is supplanting three of the eight terminals that once made up Kennedy: the existing Terminal 1 and the demolished Terminals 2 and 3, according to the Times.  Click here to see the progress inside.  Here's a rendering of what the final terminal will look like:

Best of SNL

On the US and Israel launching attacks on Iran:

"I'm starting to worry that President Trump might not win that peace prize." 
-- Colin Jost

"I can't believe our leader can just attack Iran with no vote, with no permission from Congress or anything. What is this, Iran?"
-- Michael Che

On a law that says Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince, may be banned from ever taking the throne:

"In fact, the Royal Family said the only way he could become king is if it comes down to either him and Meghan Markle."
-- Colin Jost
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On President Trump's State of the Union address where he said the nation was "bigger, better and stronger than ever before":

"Same... Said the Measles."
-- Colin Jost

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And from the Show:  'Heated Rivalry' star Connor Storrie guest hosted SNL and appears in this sketch featuring two Victorian men who settle a dispute with the help of "the gentlemen's code."  Click below to watch.