NPR News: 03-26-2026 7AM EDT
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What recent military developments are occurring in the Middle East?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. Thousands of U.S. paratroopers and Marines are deploying to the Middle East. This comes as President Trump weighs whether to seize Karg Island. NPR's Jackie Northam reports that's home to Iran's main oil processing facility.
Karg Island in the Persian Gulf is considered an economic lifeline for Iran. More than 90% of its oil exports are funneled through the tiny island. The buildup of troops heading to the Middle East is fueling speculation that the U.S. might try to seize and hold Karg Island. Caitlin Talmadge, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that would be militarily challenging.
What are the implications of the U.S. troop deployment near Karg Island?
Inserting U.S. forces so close to Iran's shores would be risky and carry the potential for casualties.
Iran has warned it will launch retaliatory strikes against energy infrastructures in the region if Karg Island is attacked, which could send world energy prices soaring. Jackie Northam, NPR News.
Senate Democrats have blocked a Republican plan to end the partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department. It would have funded the agency, including TSA agents who are not getting paid. But Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin says the GOP plan failed to address demands about federal immigration officers in the wake of the killings of two Minneapolis protesters.
We have differences of opinion when it comes to ICE and standards that they'll live by. But we ought to separate out all the others and fully fund them. We've tried to do that 10 times on the floor of the Senate. Republicans have resisted us.
But North Dakota Republican Senator Kevin Cramer says the Democrats' plan is unserious.
I don't know how they can get a better deal. We've given them a lot. Donald Trump has given them a lot. It's clear that TSA agents should be being paid, and there's absolutely no reason in the world for them to be against this deal.
There are different wait times this morning at major U.S. airports. The longest is four hours at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. The White House has missed a deadline for naming a new leader at the nation's top public health agency. NPR's Ping Huang reports, That leaves the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in an unusual position.
Wednesday marks 210 days since the last CDC director was fired. According to the Federal Vacancies Act, that's the limit for how long the role can be filled in an acting capacity by temps. The Vacancies Act is intended to prevent a president from circumventing the Senate confirmation process. The CDC's interim leader, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, will no longer be the official acting director, but at a CDC all-staff meeting, he said he would continue acting in the capacity as director. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services says Bhattacharya will continue to perform the delegable duties of the CDC director, while the health secretary evaluates candidates for the permanent CDC role.
Ping Huang, NPR News. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.
Ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan today. He and his wife, Celia Flores, want to have their federal drug trafficking charges thrown out. U.S. troops seized them in Caracas in early January and brought them to New York. That triggered a leadership change in Venezuela. New research finds that drought could be increasing antibiotic resistance in soils. NPR's Jonathan Lambert reports that antibiotic resistance seems to appear in people who end up in some hospitals.
Antibiotic resistance is on the rise worldwide. Researchers typically point to human overuse as the main driver, but antibiotics and resistance to antibiotics ultimately trace back to bacteria in the soil, and soils around the world are becoming drier from climate change. To see if this might impact resistance levels, researchers analyzed soils from around the globe. They found that drier soils tended to have bacteria with more resistance genes, And some of these genes were exactly the same as those found in human infections at local hospitals.
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