The Iran war is creating big travel headaches on top of an already chaotic situation at U.S. airports, Axios' Emily Peck reports.

• Jet fuel prices are up about 60% this month, largely because the war is disrupting key refining infrastructure.
• Some airlines are already raising fares — and warning that high prices could stick around.

💼 At the same time, airport security lines have grown comically long amid a partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA.

• Acting deputy TSA administrator Adam Stahl told CBS News that some airports could even be shut down as screeners go without pay and call out sick: "This is a serious situation."

📝 Kent Fung, vice president at Fundstrat Global Advisors, wrote in a note yesterday: "The cynical might assert that air travelers have gotten used to taking abuse, so they'll begrudgingly put up with even more."

• "But the proverbial camel's back gets broken with a single straw, and what's happening in the Persian Gulf is quite a heavy straw indeed."

The situation could eventually mark a travel breaking point — akin to what happened during the oil crisis of the 1970s, Fung writes.

• Back then, high gas prices and long lines at the pump changed Americans' fuel consumption.
• They started buying smaller, fuel-efficient Japanese cars and tried to conserve energy. Companies also tried to become more fuel-efficient.

✈️ If the travel sector's woes deepen, it could make similar changes.

• Airlines are already investing in more efficient aircraft and sustainable fuel. But the global aviation industry still burns around 100 billion gallons of standard jet fuel annually.

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Israeli forces killed Iranian intelligence minister Esmail Khatib yesterday in an airstrike on Tehran, while the Israeli air force struck a natural gas processing facility in southwestern Iran, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

🇮🇷 Khatib ran the ministry that surveilled and crushed protests and hunted dissidents abroad.

• He's one of several top Iranian officials assassinated by Israel since the war began.
• Iran retaliated by attacking its Persian Gulf neighbors and Israel, where two people were killed near Tel Aviv. (Keep reading.)

⛽️ The facility strike marks the first time Israel has attacked Iran's natural gas infrastructure — a key economic driver.

• An Israeli official said the strike was meant to warn Iran that more of its energy facilities could be targeted if it keeps disrupting oil shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

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1. Civil rights leader Dolores Huerta said today that she was sexually abused by labor icon César Chávez decades ago. Her statement follows the publication of a major New York Times investigation into Chávez's past behavior. Read Huerta's statement ... N.Y. Times gift link.
2. 🍅 Wholesale prices — including those for consumer staples like fresh vegetables — rose rapidly in February, even before the Iran war began. Go deeper.
3. 🚢 President Trump has waived requirements that only U.S. ships can carry cargo between domestic ports, as officials look to ease access to fuel and supplies while the Strait of Hormuz remains throttled. Go deeper.
4. 📰 Andy Lack — former chair and CEO of NBC News and MSNBC, and co-founder and executive chair of Deep South Today (a network of local nonprofit newsrooms in Louisiana and Mississippi) — is committing $7 million to support nonprofit journalism, he told Axios' Sara Fischer. It's one of the biggest contributions ever to nonprofit local journalism by a single individual. Go deeper.

Rocky Mountain National Park lost its top-five status last year. It now ranks sixth in visitors, Axios Denver's John Frank reports.

• The Colorado park's new permit system is limiting visitors, even as other parks abandon similar efforts.

🏔️ The five busiest national parks in 2025:

1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina (11.5 million visitors).
2. Zion National Park, Utah (4.9 million).
3. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (4.7 million).
4. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (4.4 million).
5. Yosemite National Park, California (4.2 million).

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