AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

With Iran's theocracy under assault by the U.S. and Israel for more than a week, the country's Assembly of Experts chose as the next supreme leader a secretive, 56-year-old cleric who maintains close ties to the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The Guard has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since the younger Khamenei's father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Feb. 28 during the war's opening salvo.

The war has shaken global energy markets, pushing oil prices above $100 a barrel and leading to tighter supplies of natural gas after Qatar turned off its production.

The younger Khamenei, who had not been seen or heard from publicly since the war started, had long been considered a contender for the post. That was even before the Israeli strike killed his father, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.

There appeared to be some dissension over his selection. Political figures within Iran criticized the idea of handing over the supreme leader's title based on heredity and thereby creating a clerical version of the rule of the shah, who was toppled during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But top clerics in the Assembly of Experts likely wanted Khamenei to prosecute the war.

A son of Iran's late supreme leader is chosen to replace his father as war rages

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was named as his successor Sunday, had long been considered a contender to the post even before an Israeli strike killed his father and despite the fact he had never been elected or appointed to a government position.

A secretive figure within the Islamic Republic, Mojtaba Khamenei was not seen publicly in the days after an Israeli airstrike targeting the supreme leader’s offices killed his 86-year-old father at the start of the war. Also killed in that strike were the younger Khamenei’s wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, who came from a family long associated with the country’s theocracy.

Mojtaba Khamenei will now have a central say in Iran's war strategy with the country's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answering to him. The announcement of his selection came after signs of a rift among Iranian officials as Iran awaited the decision by the 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics that selects the supreme leader.

His candidacy may have been indirectly boosted by U.S. President Donald Trump who criticized Khamenei in an interview with news website Axios on Thursday and insisted that he be involved in selecting Iran’s next leader. “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment,” Trump said, referring to his operation that saw the U.S. military seize former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” Trump added. “We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”

The idea of having Mojtaba Khamenei replace his father had been criticized as potentially creating a theocratic version of Iran's former hereditary monarchy. But his stock rose after his father and his wife were killed and became martyrs in the war against America and Israel in the eyes of hard-liners.

Crude oil prices surpass $100 a barrel as the Iran war impedes production and shipping

CHICAGO (AP) — Oil prices eclipsed $100 per barrel for the first time in more than three and a half years Sunday as the Iran war hinders production and shipping in the Middle East.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, was at $107.97 after trading resumed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, up 16.5% from its Friday closing price of $92.69.

West Texas Intermediate, the light, sweet crude oil produced in the United States, was selling for about $106.22 a barrel. That’s 16.9% higher than it closed Friday at $90.90.

Both could rise or fall as market trading continued.

The increases followed the U.S. crude price jumping by 36% and Brent crude rising by 28% last week. Oil prices have surged as the war, now in its second week, ensnared countries and places that are critical to the production and movement of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf.

Trump’s ‘roaring’ economy meets a rough start to 2026: What the latest numbers show

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump promised that 2026 would be a bumper year for economic growth, but instead it has kicked off with job losses, rising gasoline prices and more uncertainty about America's future.

In his State of the Union address less than two weeks ago, the Republican president confidently told the country: “The roaring economy is roaring like never before.” The latest batch of data on jobs, pump prices and the stock market suggests that Trump's roar has started to sound far more like a whimper.

There is a gap between the boom that Trump has predicted and the volatile results he has produced — one that could set the tone in this year's midterm elections as he tries to defend his party's majorities in the House and Senate. With Trump's tariffs drama ongoing, the war in Iran has suddenly created inflationary concerns regarding oil and natural gas. To the White House, it is still early in the year and stronger growth is coming.

“WOW! The Golden Age of America is upon us!!!" Trump posted on social media Feb. 11 after the monthly jobs report showed gains of 130,000 jobs in January.

Since then, the job market has evaporated in worrisome ways.

Counterprotester threw improvised explosive at anti-Islam event in NYC, police say

NEW YORK (AP) — A device thrown by a counterprotester at an anti-Islam demonstration in New York City on Saturday was confirmed to be an improvised explosive, according to a preliminary police analysis. As the investigation continued on Sunday, police said they were looking into a second suspicious device found in the same area of Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Two people were in custody for their alleged role in Saturday's confrontation, which unfolded during a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” event led by the far right activist Jake Lang outside the Manhattan residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The sparsely attended event drew a far larger group of counterdemonstrators, including one person who tossed a smoking object containing nuts, bolts, screws and a “hobby fuse” into the crowd, police said.

In a social media post Sunday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the department’s bomb squad determined the object wasn’t a hoax device or smoke bomb, but an “improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death.”

The device extinguished itself steps from police officers, Tisch noted. The same person who threw it then received a second device from another counterprotester, which was dropped and did not appear to ignite, the commissioner said.

On 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, worries about the future of voting rights and calls to action

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Sixty-one years after state troopers attacked Civil Rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, thousands gathered in the Alabama city this weekend amid new concerns about the future of the Voting Rights Act.

The March 7, 1965, violence that became known as Bloody Sunday shocked the nation and helped spur passage of the landmark legislation that dismantled barriers to voting for Black Americans in the Jim Crow South.

The anniversary was celebrated in this city that served as crucible for the voting rights movement, with events through the weekend ending with a commemorative march across the bridge Sunday. But the commemoration came as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a case that could limit a provision of the Voting Rights Act that has helped ensure some congressional and local districts are drawn so minority voters have a chance to elect their candidate of choice.

“I’m concerned that all of the advances that we made for the last 61 years are going to be eradicated,” said Charles Mauldin, 78, one of the marchers beaten on Bloody Sunday.

Former and current Democratic officeholders, civil rights leaders and tourists descended on Selma to pay homage to the pivotal moment of the Civil Rights Movement and to issue calls to action. Speakers warned of the looming court decision and criticized the Trump administration's actions on immigration and efforts to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Oil built the Persian Gulf. Desalinated water keeps it alive. War could threaten both

As missiles and drones curtail energy production across the Persian Gulf, analysts warn that water, not oil, may be the resource most at risk in the energy-rich but arid region.

On Sunday, Bahrain accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants. Earlier, Iran said a U.S. airstrike had damaged an Iranian plant.

Hundreds of desalination plants sit along the Persian Gulf coast, putting individual systems that supply water to millions within range of Iranian missile or drone strikes. Without them, major cities could not sustain their current populations.

In Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman and about 70% in Saudi Arabia. The technology removes salt from seawater — most commonly by pushing it through ultrafine membranes in a process known as reverse osmosis — to produce the freshwater that sustains cities, hotels, industry and some agriculture across one of the world’s driest regions.

For people living outside the Middle East, the main concern of the Iran war has been the impact on energy prices. The Gulf produces about a third of the world’s crude exports and energy revenues underpin national economies. Fighting has already halted tanker traffic through key shipping routes and disrupted port activity, forcing some producers to curb exports as storage tanks fill.

Russia sits back as the Iran war escalates, expecting long-term gains

MOSCOW (AP) — As U.S. and Israeli missiles and bombs rain on Iran, Russia has responded with words of indignation but no visible action to support its Middle Eastern ally.

That cautious stance is driven by President Vladimir Putin's focus on Ukraine and his apparent hope that the Iran war will play into Moscow’s hands by boosting its oil revenues and eroding Western support for Kyiv.

Putin sent his condolences to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, condemning the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last weekend as a “cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law.”

While Moscow’s failure to help another ally after the 2024 ouster of former Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and January's U.S. arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro highlighted the limits to its influence, the Kremlin expects to reap benefits from the Iran war.

Russia already is profiting from a surge in energy prices over the war's disruptions to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and damage to energy facilities in Gulf countries. If hostilities escalate, a continued windfall would help fill Moscow's coffers to finance military operations in Ukraine and patch the budget deficit.

'Country' Joe McDonald, '60s rock star, proud protest counterculture icon, dies at 84

NEW YORK (AP) — “Country” Joe McDonald, a hippie rock star of the 1960s whose “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was a four-lettered rebuke to the Vietnam War that became an anthem for protesters and a highlight of the Woodstock music festival, died Sunday. He was 84.

McDonald, who performed with his band, Country Joe and the Fish, died in Berkeley, California. His death from complications of Parkinson’s disease was reported by Kathy McDonald, his wife of 43 years, in a statement issued by his publicist.

McDonald was a longtime presence in the Bay Area music scene, where peers included the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane and his onetime girlfriend, Janis Joplin. He wrote or co-wrote hundreds of songs, from psychedelic jams to soul-influenced rockers, and released dozens of albums. But he was known best for a talking blues he completed in less than an hour in 1965 — the year President Lyndon Johnson began sending ground forces to Vietnam — and recorded in the Berkeley home of Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz.

In the deadpan style of McDonald’s hero, Woody Guthrie, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was a mock celebration of war and early, senseless death, with a chorus concertgoers and others would learn by heart:

And its 1, 2, 3 what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam, And its 5, 6, 7 open up the pearly gates, Well there ain’t no time to wonder why, WHOOPEE we’re all gonna die

Japan rallies late to beat Australia 4-3, clinches first place in group at World Baseball Classic

Defending champion Japan became the first nation to clinch a quarterfinal berth in the World Baseball Classic, then rallied on Masataka Yoshida's two-run homer in the seventh inning to beat Australia 4-3 on Sunday night in Tokyo and assure first place in its first-round group.

Japan advanced earlier Sunday when South Korea lost to Taiwan 5-4 in 10 innings, also at Tokyo Dome. Japan's win clinched first place in Pool C for Shohei Ohtani and the Samurai Warriors (3-0).

After completing the group Tuesday with a game against the Czech Republic (0-3), Japan will travel to Miami for a quarterfinal on March 14. Australia can clinch a quarterfinal spot by beating South Korea (1-2) on Monday.

Japan starter Tomoyuki Sugano pitched four scoreless innings of four-hit ball, and Australia (2-1) went ahead with an unearned run in the sixth against winner Chihiro Sumida. Aaron Whitefield doubled, stole third and came home on catcher Kenya Wakatsuki's throwing error.

Japan had loaded the bases in the fourth when, with Ohtani at the plate, Shugo Maki was picked off second by catcher Robbie Perkins.