Supreme Leader Statement, Emergency Oil, USA Baseball Barely Advances and more

Hey there, from CNN, I'm David Rind with the five things you need to know for Thursday,

March 12th.

Ayatollah must about Hamanay issued his first message today since becoming Iran's new

Supreme Leader on Sunday.

He has yet to appear in public since his appointment, so instead Iranian State TV read

out a statement from him, in which he said, in part, Tehran believes in what he called

friendship with its neighbors, stressing that Iran is targeting only U.S. bases in the

region.

However, the reality on the ground is that there have been several attacks against civilian

objects in oil-related areas.

He warned the U.S. and Israel they must be compensation for their actions and said U.S.

bases in the region need to be shut down or they'll be attacked.

He also said the key shipping route, the straight-or-muse, will stay closed as a tool of pressure.

Also interesting note, he said he learned of his appointment from State Television.

Speaking of the straight-or-muse, the oil market is continuing to see historic disruptions,

and this work could cause more pain points beyond the pump.

That's next, stick around.

Oil prices shop back up to over $100 a barrel overnight, as Iran focused more of its attacks

on fuel resources across the region.

The straight-or-muse is essentially choked off, and the international energy agency is

warning the world could be facing the largest supply chain disruption in the history

of the global oil market.

Businesses of state hide despite 32 of the world's biggest economies agreeing on Wednesday

to add 400 million barrels of oil to the global market, so the biggest ever release of emergency

oil stocks.

President Donald Trump authorized the release of 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic

petroleum reserve and a bid to curb rising costs.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said today that the U.S. Navy isn't ready to escort

commercial ships through the street yet.

Here's what he told CNN this morning.

All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran's ability to wage

war and terrorize the neighborhood.

When we can afford some additional assets to move tankers through the Straits of Wormuz,

we will do that.

That's coming.

Now, global oil and gas prices aren't the only rising costs affecting Americans.

The cost to transport physical goods around the world is also spiking, and that could affect

prices at the businesses we rely on every day.

CNN's Elizabeth Buckwald is here, Elizabeth, what is happening here?

How are these businesses responding?

Okay, dude.

That's exactly right.

So businesses are immediately seeing their transport costs go up, and that's because

companies like FedEx, UPS, and basically all other companies that are responsible for

shipping goods, charge higher prices, the minute that fuel costs go up.

And businesses haven't quite passed along those costs to consumers yet via higher prices,

at least in the data that I can see, but that does not mean that that won't happen.

The longer this goes on, the more potential there is, and the fact that businesses are

already absorbing so much of the tariff costs that they've passed some of it on to consumers

only increases the potential for prices to rise.

The dangerous storms that have been thrashing the Central and Eastern US for days are finally

winding down.

Two people were killed when a tornado touched down in Indiana, while giant hail and wind

tore through about 20 states.

The final round of storms hit the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Georgia late last night into

early this morning.

The storms are expected to weaken over the southeast early this afternoon, but Georgia and the

Carolinas could still see destructive winds and isolated tornadoes.

We gotta take one more break when we come back, as a famous fictional Italian mobster once

said, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

An American baseball team knows that mantra all too well right now.

Stick around.

Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper.

On my podcast, all there is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities.

You'll hear deeply moving and honest discussions with people who have faced and are living

with life-altering losses.

Singer, songwriter, and actress Sarah Bareilles.

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You've actually listened to this podcast.

Many, many times.

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I guess my own grief.

You realize how ununique you are, and how much everyone is carrying, and how I think

really people want permission to share, how much pain they're carrying at any given moment

to know that it's okay to be in so much pain, because I think we all are in different

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Talking grief, building community, that's what the podcast is all about.

This is all there is.

Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Team USA is breathing a cyber leaf at the World Baseball Classic, which is like the Olympics

of Baseball, and they have team Italy to thank.

On Tuesday, the Americans suffered a pretty humiliating loss to Italy, which does have

a roster of current and former Major League Baseball players, but this was still supposed

to be a mismatch in the Americans' favor.

Well, that loss put the Americans on the brink of elimination and the tournament they

were favored to win.

So they were likely on the edge of their seats, watching last night's Italy Mexico game,

they really needed Italy to win and win big.

That's exactly what happened, Italy trounced Mexico 9-1.

After the game, Vinny Pascuantino said, you're welcome USA, glad you could join us in

the party.

The US will play Canada in the quarterfinals on Friday, while Italy will play Puerto Rico

on Saturday.

Alright, that's all we've got for now, head over to CNN.com for the very latest and we'll

love another update right here at 6 p.m. Eastern, talk to you later.

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy, this week on the podcast, Terms of Service.

There's a growing category of products aimed specifically at addressing women's unique

health needs.

These tools and services are sometimes known as FEM tech, and they can provide big opportunities

and benefits, but they can also come with some risks.

To walk us through all of this, I spoke with Bethany Corbin.

Bethany is an attorney and CEO of FEM Innovation, where she advises startups, clinicians, and

healthcare organizations.

In my opinion, what it really does is gives us a collective language to talk about women's

healthcare innovation and the tools that are out there so that we can take control of our

healthcare experiences and know how to advocate for ourselves in a system that's probably

not been designed to advocate for us.

Listen to CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts.