Axios

Pope Leo XIV denounced President Trump's threat to wipe out Iran's civilization on Tuesday.

The big picture: The first U.S.-born pontiff told reporters in Italian "this threat against the entire people of Iran" is "truly unacceptable," according to a Vatican News translation.

Progress has been made in the past 24 hours in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, though reaching a ceasefire deal by President Trump's 8pm ET deadline still looks like a long shot, according to a U.S. official, an Israeli official and two other sources with knowledge of the talks.

• A U.S. official said the thinking in the White House has shifted from "can we get there?" to "can we get there by 8 o'clock tonight?"

Why it matters: Failure to reach a deal by the deadline —or at least make enough progress to convince Trump to extend it— would lead to an unprecedented escalation in the war.

American consumers are bracing for an Iran war inflation jolt, though they don't anticipate the effects will linger.

• That's the upshot of the New York Federal Reserve Bank's March Survey of Consumer Expectations, the first to capture sentiment since the war began.

Why it matters: So far, that is more consistent with a one-time inflation surge than the alternative outcome that might alarm the Fed: signs of unmooring in long-run inflation expectations.