Wed 18 Mar 2026 09.19 EDT Last modified on Wed 18 Mar 2026 10.46 EDT Hundreds of US contractors are stranded on a major military base near Baghdad, Iraq, with no evacuation plan, while local Iran-backed militants are possibly making plans to attack the base, three sources said. The contractors are employed on the Martyr Brigadier General Ali Flaih Air Base, formerly Balad Air Base, to support the Iraqi government’s F-16 fighter jet program. “With more than 200 American nationals on the base, ...

WP Exclusive Pentagon seeks more than $200 billion in budget request for Iran war Some White House officials do not think the Defense Department's request has a realistic shot of being approved in Congress, one senior administration official said. March 18, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. EDT President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in September. (Tom Brenner/For The Washington Post) By Noah Robertson, Jeff Stein and Riley Beggin The Pentagon has asked th ...

March 17, 2026 Updated March 18, 2026, 10:36 a.m. ET WASHINGTON ‒ Seeking to end the rapidly worsening shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, the White House has offered to expand the use of body-worn cameras for federal immigration enforcement agents and limit their activities at churches, schools, and hospitals. But a month into the crisis, the Trump administration is still holding firm on one of the more contentious parts of the debate to reform the 9/11-era Cabinet agency, ...

Published Wed, Mar 18 2026 2:00 PM EDT Updated 23 Min Ago WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday voted to hold its key interest rate steady as policymakers navigate their way through higher-than-expected inflation readings, mixed signs on the labor market - and a war. In a widely expected decision, the Federal Open Market Committee voted 11-1 to keep the benchmark federal funds rate anchored in a range between 3.5%-3.75%. The rate sets overnight funding costs for banks but influences a ...

Wednesday 18 March 2026 07:49 EDT Fifa has appeared to rule out the possibility of relocating Iran’s matches at the World Cup to Mexico following the US and Israeli airstrikes on the country. It comes after the president of the Iranian football federation, Mehdi Taj, said Iran was “negotiating” with Fifa to move the team’s matches outside of the United States due to the ongoing conflict. US president Donald Trump said last week that he did not believe it was “appropriate” for Iran to play ga ...

(CNBC) Wholesale prices rose sharply in February, providing another sign that inflation continues to percolate even aside from rising energy prices. The producer price index, a measure of pipeline costs that producers receive for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.7% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core PPI increased 0.5%. Excluding food, energy and trade services, PPI rose 0.5%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for increases of 0.3% for both measures.

(The Guardian) With big oil companies poised to reap billions of dollars in profits from the war in Iran, Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups are calling for a windfall tax on major fossil fuel companies. The US-Israeli strikes on Iran have triggered the largest ever disruption to fuel supply, according to the International Energy Agency, sending crude costs surging over $100 per barrel in recent days. Those high prices have hit US pocketbooks, with average domestic gas prices topping $3.70 a gallon, and Americans spending more than an additional $2bn to fill their tanks in the past fortnight according to one estimate. As ordinary people struggle, corporations are seeing windfall gains.

(The Atlantic) NATO faces a “very bad” future if it doesn’t help clear the strait, Trump told the Financial Times. He has also said he is not asking but ordering seven countries to help. In Trump’s mind, these threats are justified: He has a problem right now, so he wants other countries to solve it. He doesn’t seem to remember or care what he said to their leaders last month or last year, nor does he know how his previous decisions shaped public opinion in their countries or harmed their interests. But they remember, they care, and they know. Specifically, they remember that for 14 months, the American president has tariffed them, mocked their security concerns, and repeatedly insulted them.

(Mediaite) Former National Security Advisor John Bolton told CNN he briefed President Donald Trump on multiple Iran retaliation scenarios during his first term, despite the president now claiming he’s “shocked” by Iran’s actions. Bolton, who served under Trump before a public falling out, joined CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday evening, where he was surprised to hear Trump had “indicated” he wasn’t made aware of the potential of retaliatory strikes Iran has since made against neighboring countries and the Strait of Hormuz, where a significant amount of the world’s oil moves through.

(Scripps News) Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is defending President Donald Trump's authority to take military action against Iran. "After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion," Gabbard said in a post on social media. Gabbard released the statement hours after Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned over objections to the Iran war. Kent served under Gabbard within the U.S. intelligence community.