NPR News: 06-20-2026 4PM EDT
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What recent developments have occurred in the Strait of Hormuz?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. Iran's military said today it closed the Strait of Hormuz again because of Israel's continued attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. NPR's Jaina Raff has more.
Iran is now saying that it was Washington's job to ensure Israel adhered to that ceasefire. And it calls it a violation of the understanding that fighting is still going on. They say that violation, those ceasefire violations, call the entire agreement between the U.S. and Iran, including the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, into question. That's after Israeli attacks Friday and Saturday, mostly southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have invaded and they're trying to take more territory. Hezbollah is fighting back there, so not much of a ceasefire.
NPR's Jaina Raff. Pakistani officials who've been mediating the talks between U.S. and Iran on ending the war, along with Carter, say the negotiations will resume tomorrow in Switzerland. Tension between Senate Republicans and President Trump is nearing a breaking point. Trump is venting frustration that the chamber is refusing to pass a strict voter ID law. NPR's Sam Greenglass has more.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune had a plan to reauthorize a key spy tool, confirm a permanent director of national intelligence before Trump's more controversial acting pick could take over. Then, in the middle of the night, Trump fired off a post blowing up that plan. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska later compared it to sled dogs. If some big distraction like a moose comes through and you got half the team going over here and half the team going over here, It is chaos. And then what that musher has to do is he's got to stop and spend all of his time untangling this mess. Thune says he's trying to stay focused on an agenda that will help Republicans win the midterms. Sam Greenglass, NPR News, Washington.
Voters head to the polls in Utah next week for primary elections. Several candidates without ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will challenge former Congressman Ben McAdams in a new district. NPR's Maham Javid reports.
The Democratic primary next week pits McAdams, who some delegates view as too conservative, against three more liberal Democrats, none of whom is Mormon. Matthew Bowman is the chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University.
So it'll be interesting to see how that turns out and if someone who has never been LDS can actually win as a Democrat, which is a doubly hard thing to do in Utah, being both of those at the same time. So that'll be, I can think of an interesting harbinger of how Utah politics might change over the next couple of generations.
Bowman says that the city's demographics are changing. That and a blue-leaning congressional district have changed the way the city views politics. Maham Javed, NPR News. This is NPR News.
The National Weather Service warns of extreme heat at the Grand Canyon next week, with temperatures as high as 110 degrees. Three hikers have died there in recent days of heat-related causes. Scientists say they've found the oldest known traces of the plague in prehistoric teeth. NPR's Nate Rott reports.
An international team of researchers were doing a genetic analysis of ancient human teeth found in southern Siberia when they found a surprise. DNA belonging to the bacteria that causes the plague. The 5,500-year-old bacteria was different from later versions that caused the Black Death in Europe millennia later. But the study's lead author, Rory McLeod, an anthropologist at the University of Oxford, says its existence in hunter-gatherers changes a long-held theory.
The theory was that we shouldn't see major devastating outbreaks of a disease that affect entire communities until the Neolithic, until we have this farming revolution.
When people started living in closer quarters. This new finding, he says, shows dangerous pathogens can affect people in all social structures. Nate Rott, NPR News.
The cyclist arrested near the reflecting pool in the National Ball said today he was not a vandal.
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