AP Business SummaryBrief at 12:12 a.m. EST

Asian shares extend losses, Kospi sinks 10%, as the war with Iran widens and oil surges higher

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares have swooned, with South Korea's benchmark plunging 10%, after a global sell-off for stocks hit Wall Street. Oil prices climbed still higher. Worries over the widening war have hammered most world markets. U.S. futures were down 0.4%. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 finished with a loss of 0.9% after dropping as much as 2.5% on concerns over the war's damage to the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average pared its loss to 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 1%. The moves showed how higher oil prices and how much they might worsen inflation are among the central fears for investors. More spikes for oil prices may grind down the global economy and sap corporate profits.

Gasoline and diesel prices spike overnight as anxious drivers fill up tanks

NEW YORK (AP) — The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight in the U.S. And drivers in Europe waited in line to fill their tanks with fuel. This happened as war engulfed the Middle East and shipments of oil and gas were stranded in the Persian Gulf. Gasoline prices are rising as oil prices soar to levels not seen in more than a year. The spikes are happening after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia.

Lock step no more: Iran war shows cracks in Trump's conservative media support

NEW YORK (AP) — Some of the sharpest criticism that President Donald Trump has faced in the early days of the Iran war has come from once-loyal media figures more accustomed to singing his praises. The conservative media infrastructure has grown so influential and valuable to the president when everything runs smoothly that it's noticeable when there is discontent. Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh are among the notable figures to express some dismay, much of it centered around the influence of Israel. Walsh has also said the messaging around the war was muddled. Trump says that he knows MAGA best, and these objections do not reflect the views of his supporters.

Dow drops 400 after trimming an early plunge of 1,200 as oil prices climb even higher

NEW YORK (AP) — A sell-off for stocks wrapped around the world and hit Wall Street, while oil prices climbed even higher on worries about the widening war with Iran. But the big moves that rocked markets early Tuesday morning eased substantially as the day progressed. The S&P 500 finished with a loss of 0.9% after dropping as much as 2.5% on worries about how much damage the war will do to the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average pared its loss to 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 1%. More spikes for oil prices could grind down the global economy and sap corporate profits.

Anxious travelers scramble as Iran war strands hundreds of thousands across the Middle East

Travelers are scrambling for ways out of the Middle East as the Iran war keeps much of the region’s airspace closed and flights grounded. The conflict that started Saturday when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran stranded airline passengers in major Mideast cities as well as in countries far from the threat of airstrikes. With commercial flights tightly restricted across much of the Gulf for a fourth day, many were unsure what to do and appealed to their governments for information and exit strategies. The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that it was “actively securing” military and charter aircraft to fly Americans out of the region.

Pentagon dispute bolsters Anthropic reputation but raises questions about AI readiness in military

Anthropic’s moral stand on U.S. military use of artificial intelligence is reshaping the competition between leading AI companies but also exposing a growing awareness that maybe chatbots just aren’t capable enough for acts of war. Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude, for the first time outpaced its better-known rival ChatGPT in phone app downloads in the United States this week, a signal of growing interest from consumers siding with Anthropic in its standoff with the Pentagon. But while many military and human rights experts have applauded Amodei for standing up for ethical principles, some are also frustrated by years of AI industry marketing that persuaded the government to apply AI on high-stakes tasks.

China's factory activity contracts for a second month

HONG KONG (AP) — China says its factory activity contracted for a second straight month in February. The weaker data reported Wednesday comes as China holds its annual congress this week. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index, or PMI, slipped to 49 from 49.3 in January. China has been facing a sluggish domestic demand, weighed down by its prolonged real estate sector downturn. On the exports front, however, some economists believe that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Trump's reciprocal tariffs, which has led to lower global U.S. tariffs including on China, could provide a boost to China's exports and manufacturing activity for the coming months.

Trial against Meta in New Mexico highlights video depositions by top executives

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico prosecutors are presenting never-before-seen video depositions of Meta executives at a trial that centers on impacts of the conglomerate's platforms on children. Prosecutors have accused Meta of failing to disclose what it knows about the harmful effects of its platforms, in violation of state consumer protection laws. Depositions from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram leader Adam Mosseri are centerpieces of the case. The New Mexico case and a separate trial underway in Los Angeles could set the course for thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies. Meta has highlighted an array of efforts to weed out harmful content from its platforms.

What to know about the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway essential for global energy supply

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Oil prices are up sharply as the widening Iran war disrupted tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting how important the passageway is to the world’s oil supply. The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes. Tankers traveling through the strait, which is bordered in the north by Iran, carry oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Iran. Most of that oil goes to Asia. Any disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is highly disruptive to the oil trade.

Iranian strikes on Amazon data centers highlight industry's vulnerability to physical disasters

LONDON (AP) — Iranian drone strikes damaged three Amazon Web Services sites in the Middle East, exposing how vulnerable cloud data centers are in conflict. AWS said late Monday that drones directly hit two data centers in the United Arab Emirates and another site in Bahrain suffered damage after a drone landed nearby. AWS later said recovery work in the UAE was making progress. An expert said that Amazon typically configures its services so that the loss of a single data center would be relatively unimportant to its operations. He said the attacks are a reminder that cloud computing isn’t “magical” and still requires physical facilities that are vulnerable to disaster scenarios.