Pilots Killed in LaGuardia Crash

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Luke Vargas (0:34)

A deadly collision between a plane and fire truck closes New York's LaGuardia Airport. Plus Iran surprises defense experts by debuting an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Shelby Holliday (0:44)

The capability wasn't surprising, but the fact that Iran was willing to use it is what stunned a lot of people.

Luke Vargas (0:50)

And Cuba says it's readying for a US military operation as the island weathers another nationwide blackout. It's Monday, March 23rd, I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

Iran has just hours left to open the Strait of Hormuz or face US attacks on its power plants. President Trump issued that ultimatum over the weekend, threatening to obliterate the plants starting with the largest one. Iran, in turn, threatened to attack energy, water and IT infrastructure across the Middle East. That promised reprisal has led Gulf states to try and talk the US out of the plant attacks, though it's unclear if those appeals are getting through. We report that officials from several countries in the region have been angry for days that they don't have any influence with the Trump administration despite their financial investments in the US. Meanwhile, the head of the International Energy Agency says he believes the world leaders continue to underestimate the potential economic impact of the war. Fatih Birol described the current situation as being worse than the pair of oil crises that occurred in the 1970s combined, and said that interventions taken so far to limit an energy shock only amounted to a Band-Aid.

Fatih Birol (2:08)

Now we have recently released some demand-side measures, how we can reduce the demand. But what we are doing is, to be very frank, to reduce the pain on the economy. The single most important solution to this problem is opening up the Hormuz Strait, is the thing stand now.

Luke Vargas (2:34)

Birol's comments come as commodities beyond energy and fertilizer are becoming impacted by the war. Qatar is reporting that attacks on its largest LNG plant last week could take years to repair and will cut annual helium exports by some 14%. The gas is a critical component in semiconductor manufacturing. Meanwhile, Iran has brought much of Europe into the range of its missiles after targeting a US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean on Friday. The attack on the Diego Garcia base some 2,500 miles away from Iran, roughly the distance to London or Paris, was unsuccessful but revealed that the country has longer range missiles than many analysts realized. As recently as last month, Iran's leader said they had limited their missile ranges to the equivalent of half the distance to the base. Wall Street Journal's Senior National Security Correspondent Shelby Holliday says that Iran's first ever use of intermediate-range ballistic missiles, or IRBMs, is a game changer.

Shelby Holliday (3:34)

What matters is that Iran showed the world that it had IRBMs, that it had this capability, and more importantly, that it was willing to use it. And that's important because Iran has long maintained this political policy of capping its missile ranges so that it could threaten Israel and parts of the Middle East, but it tried to avoid provoking Europe and provoking countries that were farther away. And now experts say all bets are off, the cat is out of the bag, there's no going back, Iran has this capability, it's creating a new security reality overnight for European capitals and countries that are in Asia, countries that are in Africa, countries that are now within range of an Iranian missile.

Luke Vargas (4:13)

Following the attack, the UK granted the US greater access to its global bases to strike targets in Iran and prevent it from firing missiles or threatening international shipping. Two pilots have been killed after an Air Canada Express plane arriving from Montreal collided with a firefighting vehicle shortly after landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said that the firefighting vehicle was responding to a separate incident just before midnight. There were 72 passengers and four crew members aboard the aircraft, with photos showing the front end of the plane sheared off. The FAA says LaGuardia will be closed until at least 2 p.m. Eastern. Meanwhile, President Trump says he'll move immigration and customs enforcement officials to airports starting today if Democrats don't support an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Travelers have been experiencing long security lines at some airports during the spring break travel period, with the funding impasse leading some TSA officers to quit or call in sick. It wasn't immediately clear what type of security ICE would provide, though White House Borders R. Tom Homan said on Fox News Sunday that ICE personnel could perform airport security tasks that don't require specialized training.