Trump says announcement expected today on Spirit Airlines deal
Workers at Spirit Airlines wait for passengers to arrive for their flights at O’Hare Airport on March 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said an announcement was expected Friday on Spirit Airlines, amid a report that the airline was preparing to cease operations after a $500 million rescue deal fell apart.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that the airline is preparing to shut down operations.
When asked if the administration had decided against bailing out Spirit Airlines, Trump told reporters on Friday, “I guess we’re looking at it. If we could do it, we do it, but only if it’s a good deal.”
“No institution’s been able to do it,” he continued. “I said ‘I’d like to save the jobs,’ but we’ll have an announcement sometime today. We gave them, we gave them a final proposal.”
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
David Zaslav, CEO & President, Warner Bros. Discovery at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 07, 2026 in Hollywood, California. (Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders on Thursday voted to approve the Paramount Skydance takeover bid, completing a major step toward the $111 billion media mega-deal.
The offer from Paramount encompasses the HBO Max streaming service, the Warner Bros. film production company, and cable channels such as CNN. Assets owned by Paramount include CBS, Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central, among others.
Shareholders cast ballots “overwhelmingly” in support of the Paramount takeover, Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement.
“Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders. We will continue to work with Paramount to complete the remaining steps in this process that will create a leading, next-generation media and entertainment company,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in the statement.
Shares of Paramount fell nearly 5% in the minutes following the announcement on Thursday morning.
In December, Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, just days after Netflix struck a deal to purchase a large part of the media giant.
The rival, multi-billion-dollar efforts to acquire streaming platform Warner Bros. Discovery threatened to upend the media industry and shape content viewed by hundreds of millions of people.
Paramount appeared to gain the upper hand in the bidding war in recent months. In February, the Warner Bros. Discovery board of directors voted unanimously to recommend approval of the Paramount takeover.
Under the terms of the deal, shareholders will receive $31 per share, which amounts to a 147% premium, Warner Bros. Discovery said in March.
Shoppers visit the Tajrish Bazaar, one of Tehranâs main shopping areas. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A threat of U.S. attacks on power plants in Iran continues to loom over the Middle East conflict, even after Trump pushed back a self-imposed deadline for the second time.
In a post on social media on Thursday, Trump said he was “pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction” until April 6.
In the event of such an attack, Iran has said it would carry out tit-for-tat strikes against energy infrastructure in neighboring countries, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency state media.
The threatened escalation risks a humanitarian crisis for tens of millions of people in the region, potentially restricting their access to basic essentials such as electricity, food, water and health care, some analysts told ABC News.
Distress could spread to countries beyond the Gulf if dire conditions prompt residents to flee across borders and infrastructure damage worsens a global oil shock, analysts said.
“This will be bad for everybody,” Mushfiq Mobarak, a professor of economics at Yale University, told ABC News. “The most damaging effects — the largest welfare costs — will be on Iranian civilians.”
On March 21, Trump vowed to “obliterate” power plants in Iran within 48 hours unless the country eases its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Before the deadline arrived on Monday night in Washington, D.C., Trump posted on social media that he was postponing the ultimatum for five days, claiming “productive conversations” had been held between the U.S. and Iran.
On Thursday — one day before the new deadline was set to arrive — Trump said he would postpone the deadline for an additional 10 days.
Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are “ongoing,” Trump claimed. Iranian officials have denied that the country is in talks with the U.S.
Meanwhile, Iran has pledged to retaliate against civilian infrastructure in nearby countries in response to an attack on its energy sites.
“Immediately after the power plants and infrastructure in our country are targeted, the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said in a post on X on Sunday.
Natural gas supplies roughly 79% of electricity used in Iran, according to the International Energy Administration, a global energy policy group based in Paris, France.
The majority of the nation’s natural gas is supplied by South Pars, the largest natural gas field in the world. An Israeli attack on South Pars last week threatened severe impact in Iran and neighboring Gulf states, analysts previously told ABC News.
Potential U.S. attacks on energy infrastructure could cut off electricity access for many of the 92 million people in Iran, while at the same time discontinuing power for critical institutions like hospitals, Mobarak said.
“If hospitals lose power, that’s very dangerous,” Mobarak said.
The health care impact would come as some hospitals in the region face perilous conditions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Health care facilities faced a total of 13 attacks as of March 5, the WHO said, voicing concern about “health systems and lives at risk in the region.”
Attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran could also worsen food shortages and price increases, Michael Werz, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told ABC News. Annual food inflation in Iran stood at 72% in December, before the war began, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Any further deterioration of food access, Werz said, could have a “massive impact.”
Potential Iranian retaliation against civilian sites threatens desperate conditions for millions of people in nearby countries Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq and Israel, some analysts said.
Those countries depend in large part on water desalination plants for drinking water due to arid conditions in the region, making those facilities a major potential vulnerability, Ginger Matchett, assistant director with the GeoStrategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said in a blog post.
Desalinated drinking water accounts for at least 90% of the supply in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, while Israel and Oman each depend on such plants for 80% of their drinking water, Matchett said.
“If Iran successfully destroyed the Gulf’s desalination infrastructure, then the consequences could be devastating,” Matchett added.
In early March, desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain were targeted in the fighting, and missile-related damage has also been reported at sites in Kuwait and the UAE.
Potential retaliatory attacks on oil and gas sites in the region also threaten to deepen and prolong a global oil crisis, driving up fuel costs and raising prices for essential goods worldwide, some analysts said.
Global oil prices skyrocketed in recent weeks after the war prompted closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil and natural gas delivery. Consumers have held out hope for a reopening of the strait and a relatively speedy recovery, but facility repairs could stretch on for months and choke off fuel supply in the meantime.
Qatari authorities said last week that Iranian ballistic missile attacks caused fires and “extensive damage” at the Ras Laffan terminal, which carries about one-fifth of the global supply of liquid natural gas. An Iranian missile attack struck oil refineries last week in Haifa, Israel, where fire brigades extinguished a fire that broke out at the site, Israel Fire and Rescue said.
The Philippines has declared a national energy emergency in response to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, while South Korea has called on residents to ride bicycles for short trips and reduce the length of showers. Thailand and Vietnam have also asked citizens to take steps to curtail energy use.
Roughly 80% of the oil that typically passes through the strait is bound for Asian markets, according to the IEA. Still, the oil shock will raise gas prices worldwide, since energy is sold on a global market, Mobarak said.
“This will have effects for gas consumers across the world,” he added.
Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, speaks during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, marking a major reversal of fortunes for the labor market and nearly erasing all of the job gains delivered a month earlier, government data on Friday showed. The reading came in well below economists’ expectations.
The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, according to the report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which marked a significant dropoff from 130,000 jobs added in the previous month.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% in January to 4.4% in February, the BLS said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
The new jobs report arrived as markets roil and gasoline prices surge in response to the war with Iran. The Middle East conflict cast fresh uncertainty over the economic outlook.
A hiring cooldown last year prompted interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve and concern among some observers about the nation’s economic prospects. The U.S. added an average of about 15,000 jobs per month in 2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.
Sluggish hiring has coincided with elevated inflation, threatening a period of “stagflation.”
Those economic headwinds helped set the conditions before the outbreak of war with Iran, which spiked oil prices and risked price increases for a host of diesel-fuel transported goods.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 785 points on Thursday as U.S. crude prices rose to their highest level since June.
Still, the overall economic picture remains mixed.
A government report in February on gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at a tepid annualized pace of 1.4% over the final three months of 2025. That reading indicated a dramatic cooldown from the strong annualized growth of 4.4% recorded in the previous quarter, U.S. Commerce Department data showed.
Price increases, meanwhile, have softened. In January, inflation fell to 2.4%, its lowest level in nine months. It remains slightly higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
The Iran war threatens to slow U.S. economic growth since oil-driven price increases could weigh on consumers and businesses, analysts previously told ABC News.
The potential combination of higher inflation and slower growth could also pose a challenge for the Fed, putting pressure on both sides of its dual mandate to manage prices and maintain maximum employment.
If the Fed opts to lower borrowing costs, it could spur growth but risk higher inflation. On the other hand, the choice to raise interest rates may slow price increases but risks a cooldown of economic performance.
The central bank held interest rates steady at its most recent meeting in January, ending a string of three consecutive quarter-point rate cuts. Policymakers will make their next interest-rate decision on March 18.
