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

The Israeli military said early Tuesday it had begun a “wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran’s capital and was also stepping up strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. It announced the new strikes as Israel reported two incoming salvos from Iran.

Fears of a global energy crisis loomed even as a small number of ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally travels.

Iranian strikes on commercial ships in and around the strait have slowed shipping to a trickle, dramatically increasing oil prices and pressuring Washington to do something to ease the pain for consumers and the global economy.

Brent crude, the international standard, remained over $100 a barrel. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had demanded that roughly a half-dozen countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. But his appeals brought no immediate commitments.

Trump side-stepped diplomacy on his way to war in Iran. Now, he's asking China and others for help

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relied on his gut and largely side-stepped diplomatic coordination as he made the decision to launch strikes on Iran with Israel. But now with the war's economic and geopolitical consequences unfurling rapidly, he's cajoling allies and other global powers to help mop up the mess.

Trump says he's asked roughly a half-dozen other countries to send warships to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz, a consequential waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s traded oil flows. So far, none has committed. Trump even indicated he would use his long-planned trip to China to pressure Beijing to help with a new coalition meant to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait — a notion that his treasury secretary later downplayed.

“We strongly encourage other nations whose economies depend on the strait far more than ours ... we want them to come and help us with the strait,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, listing Japan, China, South Korea and several countries in Europe as examples. Trump has argued that the shipping channel is not something the United States needs because of its own access to oil.

It's the type of bullying to action that has secured key foreign policy wins for the Republican president in his second term, like prompting nearly all NATO countries to up their defense spending last year after he spent years accusing allies of freeloading off American largess, and using tariffs to extract investments and concessions from trade partners.

But with oil prices soaring and the Middle East rattled by violence, there's little inclination from other countries to heed Trump's call.

Winds, blizzards and triple-digit heat put over half of the US in the path of extreme weather

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chaotic weather, from surprising heat in California to the threat of storms rolling into the East Coast, put over half the U.S. population in the path of extreme conditions Monday.

Storms across the nation's eastern half forced airlines to cancel roughly 4,000 flights nationwide Monday, and many schools closed early in the mid-Atlantic states, where high winds were in the forecast.

Blizzards buried parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota while torrential rains flooded homes and washed out roads in Hawaii.

In Washington, the House and Senate postponed votes, and federal agencies told workers to go home early. But by late afternoon, the expected rough weather had failed to develop and a tornado watch expired.

Airport delays and cancellations piled up Monday in some of the nation’s largest airports — including those in New York, Chicago and Atlanta.

Storms cancel more US flights as TSA remains under pressure from partial government shutdown

ATLANTA (AP) — Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed Monday as powerful storms swept across the eastern half of the country and a partial government shutdown affecting airport security screeners dragged into a second month.

The disruptions come at an already challenging time for air travel, in part because the shutdown that began Feb. 14 has strained staffing at some security checkpoints. At the same time, airports are crowded with spring break travelers and fans heading to March Madness games, the annual NCAA men’s and women's college basketball tournaments.

Flight delays and cancellations piled up Monday at some of the nation’s largest airports, including those in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. The storm system that dumped heavy snow across the Midwest raced toward the East Coast with the potential for high winds and tornadoes, the National Weather Service warned Monday.

More than 4,400 flights scheduled to fly into, out of or within the U.S. on Monday have been called off, and roughly 10,400 other U.S. flights were delayed, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. Nearly 290 flights in the U.S. scheduled for Tuesday have been canceled.

Kelly Price, who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, said her Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until early Monday.

A Utah woman who wrote a book on grief after husband's death found guilty of murdering him

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman was convicted Monday of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief.

Prosecutors said Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that her husband Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at their home outside the affluent ski town of Park City. They said she was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million.

“She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money,” Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said.

Richins, 35, stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.

She was also convicted of other felonies, including attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out. Jurors also found Richins guilty of forgery and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.

Islandwide blackout hits Cuba as it struggles with deepening energy crisis

HAVANA (AP) — Officials in Cuba reported an islandwide blackout Monday in the country of some 11 million people as its energy and economic crises deepen and its power grid continues to crumble.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines on X noted a “complete disconnection” of the country’s electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid collapsed.

Lázaro Guerra, the ministry's electricity director, told state media late Monday that crews were trying to restart several thermoelectric plants, which are key to restoring power.

“It must be done gradually to avoid setbacks,” he said. “Because systems, when very weak, are more susceptible to failure.”

As night fell, candles began to burn in some homes while the sounds of children playing and singing with their mother filled one dark house in Havana.

Judge blocks US government from slimming down vaccine recommendations

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee.

The decision halted an order by Kennedy — announced in January — to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.

It also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee, which was set to convene this week in Atlanta.

The judge's order, however, is not the final word. The blocks are temporary, pending either a trial or a decision for summary judgment.

Federal health officials indicated they planned to appeal.

Afghanistan says 400 people killed in Pakistan strike on Kabul hospital

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital late Monday. It marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.

Pakistan dismissed the accusation that it had hit a hospital, saying its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan, did not hit any civilian sites.

Afghanistan's deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat, in a post on X, said the airstrike had hit the hospital in Kabul at about 9 p.m. local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility. He said the death toll had “so far” reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured.

Local television stations posted footage on X showing security forces using flashlights as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building. Fitrat said rescue teams were working to control the fire and recover the bodies.

The strike came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbors in years entered a third week.

Last protester in immigration detention after Trump’s campus crackdown has been released

ALVARADO, Texas (AP) — A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration's 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses was freed Monday after a year in custody.

Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Her detention was linked, in part, to her participation in a protest outside Columbia University in 2024.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” Kordia, with a beaming smile, told reporters after emerging from the detention center.

An immigration judge had ordered her released on bond three times. The government challenged the first two rulings, but Kordia was freed Monday on $100,000 bond after it did not challenge the third.

Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother “so hard.” But she also said she would keep fighting on behalf of people still being held at the detention center.

Bombs explode in northeastern Nigeria, leaving scores killed and injured, authorities say

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Bombs exploded in at least three locations in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state Monday night, killing and injuring scores of people, the emergency services told The Associated Press, citing possible suicide bombings.

Explosions were heard in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, where Nigeria’s homegrown jihadi Boko Haram extremists have waged an insurgency for more than a decade.

The blasts occurred at the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital and two local markets, known as Post Office and the Monday Market, according to Sirajo Abdullahi, head of operations at Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, or NEMA, in Maiduguri.

“There are casualties and they are still managing the causalities at the hospital,” Abdullahi said. “We can’t give the actual figure until we count.”

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the suspected bombings.