Luke Vargas

And aluminum prices are soaring after Iran struck a pair of key producers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Aluminum Bahrain said it's assessing damage to its facility

while the owner of the Emirati plant said it had sustained significant damage.

Excluding Iran, the Gulf smelted about 8 percent of the world's aluminum last year.

While hoping to end the war, Pakistan is pushing to get the U.S.

and Iran to the negotiating table.

Its offer to host potential talks comes after it helped Washington to pass a U.S.

peace plan on to Iran last week and marks a return to prominence for a country once isolated by Washington for harboring Osama bin Laden and which was dismissed by Trump in his first term as being a bad faith actor.

Pakistan's foreign minister yesterday described the relationship as being on more solid ground.

Speaking to reporters last night, President Trump didn't specifically mention the Pakistan talks, but said the U.S.

was negotiating both directly and indirectly with Iran.

Well, closer to America's shores, President Trump has eased his stance on the Cuba oil blockade, telling reporters that he has no problem with countries, including Russia, shipping oil to the island amid ongoing blackouts.

The move comes as a sanctioned Russian tanker carrying almost three-quarters of a million barrels of oil prepares to dock in Cuba tomorrow.

Experts say the shipment could produce enough diesel to meet demand in Cuba for nine or ten days.

And back in the U.S., long lines remained a fixture at airports across the country over the weekend, despite President Trump's executive order directing officials to pay TSA workers, many of whom continue not to show up to work.

The Department of Homeland Security said that some workers could get paid today amid the ongoing standoff in Congress on funding the department.

Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, meanwhile, White House border czar Tom Homan said that ICE agents will remain at airports.

Coming up, with its energy links to the Gulf disrupted, Europe looks for new sources of gas, and Eli Lilly bets on AI's potential to discover new drugs.

Those stories and more after the break.

First, it was the Ukraine war and now Iran.