NPR News: 02-28-2026 4PM EST
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What recent military operation did the U.S. and Israel conduct against Iran?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. The U.S. and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran early this morning. Iran's impleved Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed during an Israeli strike, according to a person briefed on the operation. NPR's Daniel Estrin reports.
His death has not yet been officially announced, but a person briefed on the strike told NPR that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader since 1989, was killed in Israeli strikes. Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were growing indications Khamenei was dead. Israeli media are reporting Khamenei's body has been pulled from the rubble. An Israeli military official told reporters that three separate gatherings of senior officials were struck simultaneously Saturday morning local time, at the start of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
What impact did the death of Iran's Supreme Leader have on the region?
The official said several central government figures in Iran were killed. President Trump and Netanyahu have called on Iranians to rise up and topple the Iranian regime. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
Iran's state-run news agency says the strikes hit a girls' school, killing at least 85 students. NPR's Ayat Betraoui has more.
Iran's state news agency, IRNA, says 170 students were present in the school when it was hit by what the governor says was, quote, the American Zionist aggression. The state news agency posted this brief clip from the scene, showing a damaged low-rise building with smoke rising and people standing around as a woman wails. The primary school is located in Minab, a city in southern Iran that's close to the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil passes. It's also near to U.S. positions in Gulf Arab states that Iranian missiles have targeted today. The attacks began this morning with Israel striking Iran first and the U.S. announcing its involvement. Iran, a nation of 90 million, has closed schools and universities until further notice.
The Israeli-U.S. attacks came on the 10th day of Ramadan, a holy time for Muslims and when much of the region is fasting. Aya Batraoui, NPR News, Dubai.
China has called for the military strikes against Iran to stop immediately. NPR's Jennifer Pak reports.
China's foreign ministry has called on the U.S. and Israel to respect Iran's sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity. And it says all sides should resume talks to uphold peace and stability in the Middle East. China and Iran are close strategic partners. But that friendship has its limits. Just days before the strikes, an Iranian broadcaster asked at a Chinese foreign ministry press conference whether China would join Russia to support Iran in the event the U.S. attacks. Spokesperson Mao Ning did not answer the question directly. Instead, she says China hopes all parties will exercise restraint and is happy to facilitate peaceful talks. Jennifer Pak, NPR News, Beijing.
The UN Security Council is to meet at this hour to discuss the strikes. This is NPR News in Washington. The Library of Congress has found and restored a long-lost film by the pioneering 19th century French filmmaker Georges Melahet. NPR's Chloe Veltman reports experts are saying this is likely the first instance of a robot ever captured in a moving image.
The 45-second-long silent film Gugus i l'Automate, or Gugus and the Automaton, is nearly 130 years old. But the subject matter feels very timely. A child-sized robot clown grows to the size of an adult and then attacks a human clown with a stick. The human then destroys the machine with a hammer. In an Instagram post, Library of Congress Moving Image curator Jason Evans-Groff says the film arrived in a box from a donor in Michigan, Bill McFarland. McFarlane's great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee, a Pennsylvania potato farmer and schoolteacher, was fascinated by new technologies.
Must have bought a projector and a bunch of films and decided to drive them around in his buggy to share them with folks in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York.
The film is available on the Library of Congress' website.
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