Sharon Reich-Garson

Iran's threats to hit desalination plants are especially acute in water-scarce states along the Gulf, where entire populations and economies depend on water from the facilities.

Analysts call this next 48 hours a ticking time bomb for global markets.

Oil's already at a four-year high, and energy and commodities editor Dmitry Zhdanikov says fears of a Black Monday are spreading.

The Iran war is also disrupting the flow of life-saving medicines into the Gulf.

Major air routes are down because of the conflict.

And with big international hubs like Doha and Abu Dhabi still shut, drug makers are scrambling to find workarounds to reroute cargo.

Reuters pharma industry correspondent Maggie Fick tells us what this could mean for patients.

While there aren't currently signs of major shortages, that could soon change if the conflict continues.

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who led the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, has died.

He was 81.

His law firm confirmed the news with no cause of death mentioned.

Mueller's best known for a sweeping probe that indicted three dozen people and exposed how Russia worked to boost Donald Trump's campaign.

The U.S.

president has responded to the news with a blistering social media post saying, good, I'm glad he's dead.

Voters in France head to the polls today in mayoral runoff elections that'll decide who runs Paris, Marseille, and more than 1,500 other cities and towns.

These local races won't predict next year's presidential election, but they do reveal how political alliances are shifting and how a divided left is trying and sometimes struggling to come together between rounds.

This week's On Assignment podcast looks at what these races tell us about France after Macron and whether the far right is gaining real momentum ahead of next year's presidential vote.

We'll drop a link to the episode in the show notes.

Kevin Durant has passed Michael Jordan and moved into fifth on the NBA's all-time scoring list.

He dropped 27 points in the Rockets' 123-122 win over the Miami Heat.