Plus, a submarine attack on an Iranian ship off Sri Lanka.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. In Iran, Khamenei's son Mojtaba is alive and favored to succeed him and a submarine attack on Iranian ship off Sri Lanka leaves at least 101 people missing.

Meanwhile, the US turns up heat on Venezuela, and our takeaways from the first primaries of 2026 US midterm elections.

Today's Top News

 

A child stands next to an Iranian missile after it fell near Qamishli International Airport, Qamishli, Syria, March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman

War in the Middle East

  • Mojtaba Khamenei, the powerful son of Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is alive and favored to emerge as his father's successor, two Iranian sources told Reuters. Follow live.
  • Lebanon was pulled deeper into the war as the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel. Lebanon, Syria and Jordan Bureau Chief Maya Gebeily tells the Reuters World News podcast the Iran-backed group's move has sown division and chaos among its Shi'ite support base.
  • President Donald Trump said he ordered US forces to join Israel's attack on Iran because he believed Iran was about to strike first, contradicting the rationale offered a day earlier by his secretary of state for how the ‌war began.
  • A submarine attack on an Iranian ship off the coast of Sri Lanka has left at least 101 people missing, one dead and 78 injured, sources ‌in Sri Lanka's navy and defense ministry told Reuters. It was unclear who attacked the ship, which the sources said has now sunk.

In other news

  • The Trump administration is quietly building a legal case against Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez including readying a draft criminal indictment, one of several tools it is using to strengthen its leverage with Caracas, according to four people familiar with the matter.
  • US Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will square off in a high-stakes runoff for the state's Republican nomination for Senate, pitting a longtime member of the party's establishment against an insurgent hardliner as the midterm elections kicked off. Here are our key takeaways from Tuesday's primaries.
  • Lawmakers in the US Senate are set to begin voting on a bipartisan war powers resolution aiming to stop the military campaign against Iran and require that any hostilities against it be authorized by Congress.
  • Germany's intelligence service accused Moscow of hiding the true cost of the war in Ukraine, saying Russia's budget deficit in 2025 was more than $30.45 billion higher than officially stated.
 

Business & Markets

 
  • Numerous small company owners are coming to the conclusion that, while the US Supreme Court's ruling striking down Trump's tariffs is a win on paper, recouping tariff expenses won't be easy - if it happens at all.
  • The US dollar's bounceback since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran may be short-lived due to lingering doubts about the safe-haven appeal of US assets, according to FX strategists polled by Reuters who broadly still expect two Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year.
  • The Trump administration plans to meet with executives from the biggest US defense contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss ‌accelerating weapons production, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies after strikes on Iran and several other recent military efforts, five people familiar with the plan told Reuters.
  • Dozens of repatriation flights were due to take off from the Middle East as governments try to ‌bring tens of thousands of stranded citizens home, while the selloff in global airline shares eased even as the US and Israeli air war against Iran escalated.
  • Trump is set to meet with leaders of major technology ‌companies, including Google, Meta and OpenAI, to formalize a pledge aimed at protecting consumers from rising electricity costs tied to the rapid expansion of energy‑intensive data centers.
  • Markets are reacting in unexpected ways as the Middle East conflict. Find out how on today's Morning Bid podcast.
 

Netanyahu's war alliance with Trump faces test as Iran crisis widens

 

Trump and Netanyahu during a press conference after meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered on a career-long ambition to topple Iran's leadership, but his lockstep alignment with Trump faces a test as their joint military campaign threatens to drag on, with its goals potentially shifting in the coming weeks.

At the outset of the bombing campaign, both Trump and Netanyahu said regime change was the goal. But in remarks at the White House on Monday, two days after Israeli air strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of his leadership, Trump did not mention overthrowing Iran's government as his top priority.

Read more
 

And Finally...

A 20th century map depicting a mining operation mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is displayed at the Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium. REUTERS/Anna Lennon 

A US mining company backed by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates is in a tangle with Belgium's AfricaMuseum over who should digitize antique maps of what is now ‌the Democratic Republic of Congo in the museum's archive.

Belgium's King Leopold II seized Congo in 1885 for his personal enrichment - the territory was plundered and the ⁠population subjected to extreme brutality. 

Several US companies are expanding in Congo as Washington deepens a strategic partnership with Kinshasa to secure supplies and reduce reliance on China for materials needed for batteries, electronics and defence.

Read more