NPR News: 04-22-2026 5PM EDT
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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. Iran attacked at least three ships near the Strait of Hormuz just hours after President Trump said he would extend a ceasefire for an indefinite period of time. NPR's Jackie Northam reports tensions are once again increasing in the waterway, which carries 20% of the world's crude oil.
Iran says its Revolutionary Guard Corps opened fire from a gunboat on three commercial vessels as they were about to transit the Strait of Hormuz. One of them sustained heavy damage. Two of the vessels were moved into Iranian waters. It's unclear what will happen with them. The escalating tension follows President Trump's ceasefire extension in the hopes that negotiations between the two sides will resume. But Tehran says a ceasefire is meaningless unless the U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz is lifted. The U.S. has prevented dozens of ships from accessing Iranian ports. Iran sees the blockade as an act of war. Jackie Northam, NPR News.
President Trump is falsely claiming yesterday's election in Virginia was rigged. Voters approved a redistricting measure aimed at countering maps favoring congressional Republicans. NPR's Deepa Shivaram reports the closely decided vote could lead to more Democratic-leaning districts ahead of the midterms.
Trump posted on social media blaming the results of the election on mail-in ballots, which he claims, without any evidence, tilted the results of the election. Trump has often framed mail-in ballots as a fraudulent part of the election process and claims that the U.S. is the only country that uses mail ballots, neither of which is true. Trump accused the language of the Virginia referendum of being, quote, deceptive. He said he is, quote, an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even he did not understand the referendum. The president suggested that the courts could get involved in the results of the election. Virginia's Supreme Court was already set to consider challenges to the redistricting efforts.
Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, the White House.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified during back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill today. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician, questioned Kennedy about the independence of the next director of the CDC. Cassidy pressed Kennedy on whether a new director would be able to make decisions free from political influence.
Will the new director, whoever she is, have the right to make decisions independently of those political appointees and or replace them or otherwise reassign them so they cannot continue to actively undermine trust in immunizations? Your characterization of the political appointees is wrong. And the CDC director has that power.
Kennedy also defended current staff rejecting claims they're undermining trust in vaccines. At the close on Wall Street, the Dow was up 340 points. This is NPR. A new report finds Colombian mercenaries backed by the United Arab Emirates fought alongside a paramilitary group at war with Sudan's army. As NPR's Emmanuel Akinwatu reports, the mercenaries helped take over a major city in the western region of Darfur and carry out violence the UN said bore the hallmarks of a genocide.
Analysis from the Conflict Insights Group shows how Colombian mercenaries were deployed from multiple military bases, including in the UAE, to support the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. And documents show the Colombian mercenaries were deployed by a UAE-based company with close ties to senior Emirati government officials. The UAE has denied mounting evidence that it supports the RSF. The group took over the city of Al-Fashir in October last year after a brutal 18-month siege on the regional capital. According to human rights groups, tens of thousands of people were killed by the RSF and allied Arab militias in the city in some of the worst crimes of the more than three years' civil war.
Emmanuel Akimotu, NPR News, Lagos.
United Airlines says ticket prices could go up by 15 to 20 percent as the cost of fuel rises.
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