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President Trump takes executive action to pay TSA workers after funding efforts in

Congress breakdown.

Plus, countries in the Gulf are bracing for more war.

And Wall Street is trading like the worst from the Iran conflict is yet to come.

Really what's driving stocks down is fear.

So the market is digesting a geopolitical shock, a sudden war in Iran that sent oil prices

surging.

Everyone is bracing.

It's Friday, March 27th.

I'm Alex Oselev for the Wall Street Journal.

This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that

move the world today.

President Trump has taken action to pay TSA workers by passing a Congress in gridlock.

House Republican leaders today rejected a bill that would fund most of the Department

of Homeland Security that had already passed in the Senate.

As you heard on this morning show, senators just after 2am approved funding for DHS, except

for ICE and Border Patrol.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a press conference today that his party wouldn't

be a part of efforts to stop immigration enforcement.

The Republicans are not going to be a party to this.

They have taken hostage the funding process as a government so that they can impose their

radical agenda on the American people when we can't have any part of it.

This gambit that was done last night is a joke.

While Congress has standoff over immigration enforcement seems likely to continue, Trump's

executive action described the situation at the country's airports as a quote, unprecedented

emergency and called for using federal funds to pay TSA workers.

DHS says TSA officers will get their paychecks as soon as Monday.

And speaking of the House, Republican representative Sam Graves of Missouri, the chairman of the

Transportation Committee, is retiring from Congress.

More than 50 House members have said they're leaving when their terms are up.

A record for a midterm election year.

About half of them are running for a different office.

Today in the Middle East, Iran turned away two Chinese-owned container vessels from crossing

the Strait of Hormuz.

It was unusual.

Iran's blockade has focused on countries it sees as supporters of Israel and the U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters today that after the fighting ends, it will

be a priority to prevent Iran's control over the Strait.

One of the immediate challenges we're going to face is an Iran that may decide that they

want to set up a tolling system in the Straits of Hormuz.

Not only is this illegal, it's unacceptable, it's dangerous to the world.

And it's important that the world have a plan to confront it.

The United States is prepared to be a part of that plan.

We don't have to leave that plan, but we're happy to be a part of it.

The journals also learned that Rubio has told G7 counterparts that he expects the war

will continue for two to four weeks.

U.S. Central Command said today that more than 300 U.S. troops have been injured after

four weeks of war with Iran.

The Pentagon is looking at sending up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle

East to give President Trump more military options.

Meanwhile, Israel attacked Iran's weapons facilities, including two nuclear program

sites.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, the pace of attacks from Iran hasn't stopped completely, but it's

slowed.

That's made life a bit easier in the United Arab Emirates, where businesses have tried

to adjust to disruptions and residents have gotten used to missile attack warnings.

But even so, Gulf states are bracing for even more turbulence to come, as they push for

a conclusive outcome to the war.

Yaroslav Trafimov, the journals chief foreign affairs correspondent, joins me now from Dubai.

Yaroslav, what has life been like during the conflict?

Well, you know, it's really strange because on one hand, you do get these missile attack

warnings and drone attacks, but most of the missiles have been successfully intercepted

and so, actually, a lot of people in the UAE are not paying attention to these warnings

anymore, which is dangerous because just on Thursday, and it wasn't a missile, it was intercepted

over the city of Abu Dhabi, and they every fell and killed two people there.

How does the UAE want this conflict to end, and how does that differ from how the US or

Israel wants it to end?

Well, it's not clear what the US wants because President Trump keeps moving the goalposts

of his policy and hasn't quite clearly articulated what he actually wants.

The UAE didn't want this war, but once the US and Israel struck Iran, what happened

here is that Iran actually fired more than the UAE than anyone else, and more than

Israel.

And so, this country that didn't really want the war was the one that was basically the

biggest victim of the Iranian retaliation, and there is a lot of anger with the Iran's

behavior.

UAE officials are calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that is running in the country now,

the terrorist organization, and I think they're seeking a brand new regime in Iran that

would not be a threat to the UAE, so they want a deal that would involve not just the

nuclear issue, which was the trigger for this military action by the US and Israel, but

also curbs on the Iranian ballistic missile capabilities, a ban on Iran supporting terrorist

groups for extremist militias around the Middle East, like Lebanon or Yemen, and above

all, the reopening of the street of our moves to free navigation.

You mentioned that there's a lot of anger in the UAE at Iran, which makes sense.

They have been bombing them, but how about at the US and Israel for starting this conflict?

As somebody told me in the first day of this conflict, people in the Gulf woke up angry

with the US and Israel in the morning and went to bad angry with Iran.

What everybody cares about is how it ends, and as far as the UAE is concerned, they want

the war to end in some kind of clean way that doesn't involve protractive stability

in an economy like Dubai, that is based on tourism on services, on the airline industry,

can't really afford to be in headlines because of missiles and drones every few months.

The way things are headed right now, how likely is it that the UAE will get that wish?

President Sharpe is sending ground troops to the region, he's contemplating operations

to seize some islands, perhaps in the Persian Gulf, maybe other bits of Iranian territory

to compel the Iranian regime to a deal.

Bombing goes on in Iran, and so a lot of people in the Gulf are thinking that things will

get worse before they get better, and they will see another round of escalation.

And there is very little optimism that this will end anytime soon.

That was WSJ Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trafimov.

Thanks, Yaroslav.

Thank you.

Coming up, the war's effect on markets this month, and have you heard of Technic?

That's after the break.

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U.S. stocks fell sharply again today after yesterday's sell-off.

The NASDAQ led the losses, falling more than 2% for the second day in a row.

The Dow dropped 793 points, joining the NASDAQ in correction territory.

That means the indexes are more than 10% off their recent highs.

The S&P, meanwhile, fell 1.7%.

It's dropped for five straight weeks.

Brent crude the International Oil Benchmark, climbed above $112 a barrel, its highest

close since July 2022.

Even though President Trump this week paused on energy strikes to allow time for negotiations,

WSJ's What's News and Markets host Demani Moise says investors are worried that there's

more pain to come from the war.

We're seeing that consumer sentiment has decreased, you're also seeing that amongst investors.

And people are also piling into options that bet against the S&P 500.

So all of the major indexes are on track to end this month in the red.

The NASDAQ entered correction territory this week, and the S&P 500 is on track for its

worst monthly performance in 2022.

Really what's driving stocks down is fear.

So the market is digesting a geopolitical shock, a sudden war in Iran that sent oil prices

surging.

Everyone is bracing.

A US Federal Appeals Court today ruled that Argentina doesn't have to pay shareholders

$16 billion for its takeover of the country's biggest oil company, YPF.

The ruling is a victory for Argentinian President Javier Miele, an ally of President Trump,

and allows Miele's government to continue its free market overhaul.

And Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of the Today Show, will return to the program on April 6th,

more than two months since the disappearance of her 84-year-old mother.

In an interview with NBC veteran Hota Kotby that aired today, Guthrie said the Today

Show was also her family.

I can't come back and try to be something that I'm not, but I can't not come back because

it's my family.

I think it's part of my purpose right now.

The announcement puts to bed rumors of a potential exit that had swirled since Guthrie's mother's

disappearance.

No arrests have been made in the Nancy Guthrie case.

And finally, turns out that staring at your phone for hours each day, which most Americans

do, by the way, isn't just bad for your eyes and also maybe your sleep.

It's apparently also causing neck wrinkles that some are calling tech neck, and the beauty

industry is pitching solutions.

Solar waves neck and chest mask is low effort.

It's spa grade at home.

You can lay down, you can watch TV or doom scroll.

Dermatologists here, and I got you.

If you get these horizontal lines on the neck, aka tech neck, and want to do something

to make them less apparent, here's one thing that helps better than all of the products

actually designed to help with this.

The rock, germ correction, firming, serum stick.

Also worth considering, looking at your phone a little less to begin with.

And that's what's news for this week.

Tomorrow you can look out for our weekly markets wrap up, what's news in markets.

Then on Sunday we'll be discussing the rise of AI agents like OpenClaw and the opportunities

and risks they bring with them.

That's in what's news Sunday.

And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning.

Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienna-May with supervising producer Tally Arbel.

Michael LaValle wrote our theme music.

I shall move slim as our development producer.

Chris Inzli is our deputy editor, and I'm Alex Osola.

Thanks for listening.

We're going to love Schmiggadoun.