U.S. inflation may have cooled a bit last month but it could be a short reprieve as President Donald Trump's tariffs are widely expected to keep prices elevated in the coming months.

On Wednesday, the Labor Department is expected to report that in February the consumer price index rose 2.9% from a year ago, according to economists surveyed by FactSet. That would be down slightly from 3% in January and the first drop in five months. It fell to a 3 1/2 year low of 2.4% in September.

Stock markets are plunging, consumers and businesses have started to sour on the economy, and economists are marking down their estimates for growth this year, with some even seeing rising odds of a recession.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq stock index slipped into a correction last week, defined as a 10% drop from its most recent peak. The broader S&P 500 neared that level Tuesday.

President Donald Trump officially increased tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25% on Wednesday, promising that the taxes would help create U.S. factory jobs at a time when his seesawing tariff threats are jolting the stock market and raising fears of an economic slowdown.

Trump removed all exemptions from his 2018 tariffs on the metals, in addition to increasing the tariffs on aluminum from 10%. His moves, based off a February directive, are part of a broader effort to disrupt and transform global commerce. The U.S. president has separate tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, with plans to also tax imports from the European Union, Brazil and South Korea by charging "reciprocal" rates starting on April 2.

When protests over the Israel-Hamas war took root on Columbia University's campus last spring, Mahmoud Khalil became a familiar, outspoken figure in a student movement that soon spread to other U.S. colleges.

The international-affairs graduate student was a fixture in and around the protest encampment on Columbia's Manhattan campus, serving as a spokesperson and negotiator for demonstrators who deplored Israel's military campaign in Gaza and pressed the Ivy League school to cut financial ties with Israel and companies that supported the war.

Israel's defense minister warned Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa that Israel “is watching him from the heights of Mt. Hermon,” which Israeli forces captured as part of a buffer zone inside Syria last year, and said Israel struck 40 military targets overnight in southern Syria.

Israel plans to allow members of the Druze minority from Syria to work in Israeli-controlled parts of the Golan Heights as soon as the coming week, Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Tuesday issued from Mt. Hermon. He stressed that Israel plans to remain in the Syrian buffer zone for an “indefinite period” to ensure that southern Syria remains demilitarized and does not pose a threat to residents of Israel or the Golan Heights.

The Iran-backed rebels’ secretive leader had warned Friday that attacks against Israel-linked vessels would resume within four days if Israel didn’t let aid into Gaza. As the deadline passed Tuesday, the Houthis said they were again banning Israeli vessels from the waters off Yemen.

Although no attacks were reported, the warning has put shippers on edge. The rebels targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors.

Residents in northeastern Syria danced in the streets to celebrate a breakthrough pact between local Kurdish-led authorities and the new central government, while thousands of people continued to flee other areas where sectarian violence has targeted Alawites.

The mostly ethnic Kurdish revelers in the northeastern city Qamishli chanted "One, one, one — the Syrian people are one," as cars drove by honking in celebration following Monday night's declaration, which includes a ceasefire and integration of Kurdish forces into the national army.

The European Union on Wednesday announced retaliatory trade action with new duties on U.S. industrial and farm products, responding within hours to the Trump administration's increase in tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25%.

The world's biggest trading bloc was expecting the U.S. tariffs and prepared in advance, but the measures still place great strain on already tense transatlantic relations. Only last month, Washington warned Europe that it would have to take care of its own security in the future.

China, Iran and Russia conducted joint naval drills Tuesday in the Middle East, offering a show of force in a region still uneasy over Tehran's rapidly expanding nuclear program and as Yemen's Houthi rebels threaten new attacks on ships.

The joint drills, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, took place in the Gulf of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude oil traded worldwide passes. The area around the strait in the past has seen Iran seize commercial ships and launch suspected attacks in the time since President Donald Trump first unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Despite playing some of the best football, Paris Saint-Germain is once again on the brink of an early exit from Europe's elite club competition.

The French league leader — which has lost at this stage of the tournament in five of the past eight editions — travels to Liverpool later Tuesday for a mouth-watering Champions League last 16 tie, trailing 1-0 from the first leg.