By Sam Sifton
Good morning. Israel is striking Beirut’s city center, targeting Hezbollah in neighborhoods once considered safe.
And an American refueling plane crashed in Iraq, killing four crew members. The crash was not because of hostile or friendly fire, the U.S. said.
Yesterday proved that a short and surgical war with Iran could be a fantasy. For one thing, there was the charged language that Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, used in his first address to the nation: Iran would avenge “the blood of your martyrs,” he said in remarks that were read on state television. For another, look at how effectively Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a battlefield.
That battlefield has become President Trump’s biggest problem.
An oil tanker anchored in Muscat, Oman. Benoit Tessier/Reuters
A dangerous bottleneck
The Strait of Hormuz is an excellent theater for Iran’s strategy of asymmetric warfare, my colleagues write. The waterway serves as the main artery for exports from the Persian Gulf, including a fifth of the world’s oil. And it’s just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point along Iran’s southern border.
Staggering U.S. firepower may have shut Iran out of its own airspace. But local forces can still block and hobble commercial ships in the strait. They can fire at them from land, or place mines in their path. They can hit them with small boats full of explosives. Meanwhile, they are letting their own tankers through, full of crude.
Read more about the closure. And look at where ships have been struck in the strait:
Sources: Kpler, Kuwait National Petroleum Company, Saudi Arabian Ministry of Energy, Planet Labs, Pole Star Global, QatarEnergy, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations and Vanguard Tech. The New York Times
It makes sense for Iran to strangle global shipping and detonate the oil markets. That way, Trump could face pressure to stop the war. Khamenei has already vowed to keep blocking the strait.
And you won’t currently find American military superiority there. Chris Wright, the U.S. energy secretary, told CNBC yesterday that it would be some time before the Navy would be in a position to escort oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. “We’re simply not ready,” he said. “All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities.”
It won’t be a cakewalk for the United States if and when those gunboats arrive. A weekslong mine-clearing operation in the strait may be necessary, military officials told my colleagues — an expensive and dangerous enterprise that puts the lives of American sailors at risk. “The Strait of Hormuz is a difficult, almost impossible problem to solve through military means alone,” said a retired Air Force lieutenant general who served as a strategist in the Middle East during the 2000s.
All of which appears to have caught the Trump administration flat-footed. What has likely surprised the administration, a research fellow at the Cato Institute told The Times, is “Iran’s ability to take pain and to keep going, and second, their ability to inflict costs and inflict pain on the United States.”
Global shock
A gas station in Vietnam. Nhac Nguyen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It’s not just the United States, though. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is already affecting the whole world’s economy, writes Patricia Cohen, who covers global economics. The effects are crashing down on both businesses and households.
Cargo bound for world markets has been stranded, while the cost of shipping has risen and insurance premiums are going through the roof. We’re paying more for gas, of course — last night, Trump even lifted sanctions on Russian oil to help contain prices at the pump. But the cost of food, medicine, airplane tickets, electricity and semiconductors is soaring too. For some American farmers, the price of a common fertilizer has risen nearly 25 percent.
Here’s Patti:
In Kansas, home buyers saw 30-year mortgage rates edge above 6 percent this week. In Western India, families mourning the death of a loved one discovered that gas-fired crematories had been temporarily closed.
In Hanoi, Vietnam, gas station owners posted “sold out” signs. In Kenya, tea growers and traders worried their exports to Iran would rot on the dock. And across the United States, Canada, Europe, Britain and Mexico, farmers blanched at the surge in fertilizer costs.
“This really is the big one,” a former U.S. diplomat and Energy Department official told her. A disaster scenario is unfolding.
The New York Times
More on the war
In Lebanon
- Israeli airstrikes hit an area of central Beirut near the government’s headquarters that is known for its bars, restaurants and schools. Israeli officials said the strikes were targeting Hezbollah infrastructure.
- Another strike hit the campus of Lebanese University, killing two academics.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Lebanon to join Israel’s fight against Hezbollah, an Iran proxy that has fired rockets into Israel.
- The fighting has killed nearly 100 children in Lebanon, officials there said, and displaced a tenth of all children in the country.
In Iran
- Military exchanges between Iran, Israel and the United States showed no signs of slowing. Read the latest updates.
- More than 1,348 civilians in Iran have been killed since the start of the war, Iran’s representative to the United Nations told the Security Council.
- See how Iran’s mines in the Strait of Hormuz work.
THE LATEST NEWS
Violence in the U.S.
- A suspect was killed after driving a truck into a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., and exchanging fire with security guards.
- Officials called the synagogue attack “a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,” and identified the suspect as a 41-year-old naturalized citizen who was born in Lebanon.
- At Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., a man stormed a classroom and opened fire, killing an Army officer. The gunman was subdued and killed by students.
- Officials identified the Old Dominion shooter as a man who had been sentenced to prison in 2016 for trying to assist the Islamic State.
Politics
- The Senate passed a bipartisan bill to increase the supply of new houses and restrict purchases by private investors. But it faces hurdles from the House and the Trump administration.
- The Trump administration has a new strategy of suing Republican states and reaching quick settlements to fast-track policy changes without legislation. One opponent called it “an end run around the democratic process.”
- The administration sued California over its strict limits on tailpipe emissions, arguing that the rules would force an unlawful transition to electric vehicles.
- The Trump administration appointed an ophthalmologist to an air pollution advisory board. He does not have a background in air pollution science.
- At a rally in Kentucky, Trump gave his “complete and total endorsement” to Jake Paul, a boxer and social media influencer who is not currently running for office.
Around the World
In Moscow. Tatyana Makeyeva/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Russia: A Moscow court sentenced 15 men to life in prison for a 2024 terror attack on a concert hall that killed at least 149 people.
- Israel: A key Israeli judicial office said that it would be inappropriate to consider a pardon for Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, unless he admits guilt.
- Chile: The inauguration of José Antonio Kast, the country’s right-wing president, has become a celebration of a growing conservative movement across Latin America.
Health
- A Planned Parenthood affiliate in California and Nevada will offer cosmetic procedures, like Botox and IV hydration drips, in an effort to remain open amid federal funding cuts.
- Microsoft is introducing a tool for users to share health records with its chatbot, Copilot, echoing similar moves by Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic. It’s raising privacy concerns.
OPINIONS
Mussolini would have loved Trump’s new ballroom, writes Paul Goldberger, a former Times architecture critic.
The law requires Justice Department lawyers to be truthful. A proposed rule by the Trump administration could change that, Deborah Pearlstein writes.
There are young people who want to farm. We need to help them take over family farms, instead of letting major corporations consolidate the industry, Brooks Lamb writes.
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MORNING READS
Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times
Superbloom: Wildflowers have burst from the desert floor in Death Valley. It’s the California park’s most abundant bloom in a decade.
Master of modesty: The Chilean architect Smiljan Radic won this year’s Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture. The jury said his buildings embraced vulnerability. See some of them here.
Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about NIMBY-ism and one very large addition to a house.
TODAY’S NUMBER
82 million
— That is the estimated number of Americans, a third of all adults in the country, who say they are making sacrifices, including skipping meals or driving less, to pay for health care.
SPORTS
N.B.A.: The Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored at least 20 points for the 127th straight regular-season game, breaking a record Wilt Chamberlain had held since 1963.
N.F.L.: The quarterback Kyler Murray, a former No. 1 pick in the draft who was released by the Arizona Cardinals, signed a one-year deal with the Minnesota Vikings.
World Cup: After Trump warned the Iranian men’s soccer team that participating in this summer’s World Cup could be a risk for “their own life and safety,” the team responded in a statement, saying “no one can exclude” Iran from the event.
RECIPE OF THE DAY
Craig Lee for The New York Times
For years, Mark Bittman wrote a cooking column for The Times called The Minimalist: not too many ingredients; not too many steps. This recipe, for roasted cod and potatoes, came out of one of them, and it’s a treasure, a kind of hack on potatoes Anna with sweet, luscious cod on top that makes it a meal. I sprinkle capers over the whole thing at the end because I’m a maximalist.
MISSIONARY JACK
Lucia Bell-EpsteinThe New York Times
On “Popcast” this week: Jack Harlow’s pivot from chart-topping rap to live-band rhythm and blues. “As I’m getting older, I’m having more trouble reconciling being braggadocious on record,” he told The Times. “And it’s a pillar of rap. Part of the reason I love rap music is the braggadocio of it. But I spent some time thinking, How can I lean away from that?”
More on culture
- Daniel Radcliffe opened in “Every Brilliant Thing” on Broadway last night. Helen Shaw, our theater critic, loved it. “He is himself a brilliant thing,” she writes.
- Here’s Tejal Rao, one of our restaurant critics, on René Redzepi’s announcement that he is stepping down from Noma after recent reports in The Times about his violent abuse of employees. The restaurant “profoundly changed the aesthetics of fine dining,” she writes. “But it failed to change anything below the surface.”
- Late night hosts discussed the threat of an Iranian drone strike on California.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS
Nina Kiri in “Undertone.” Dustin Rabin/A24
Watch “Undertone” is a new horror film that our critic Alissa Wilkinson calls “a properly scary movie, the kind that merits watching in a theater with a good sound system (or with headphones in a dark room, at home).”
Upgrade your Easter baskets this year (if you basket at Easter, that is), with some fine ideas from the bunny rabbits at Wirecutter.
Take our news quiz.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was penciled.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Crossplay and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam
Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
Host: Sam Sifton
Editor: Adam B. Kushner
News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti
Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson
News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Brent Lewis, Lara McCoy, Karl Russell
Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch
Editorial Director, Newsletters: Jodi Rudoren
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