NPR News: 07-21-2026 6AM EDT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst.
What is the latest on the Pentagon funding request for the Iran war?
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will ask the Senate Appropriations Committee today for $350 billion to fund the Iran war. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports Hegseth will be on Capitol Hill as attacks between Iran and the U.S. are escalating.
U.S. forces have bombed Iranian military and infrastructure targets for 10 days running and have reinstated a naval blockade on Iran's ports and coastline.
How have U.S.-Iran strikes and troop casualties escalated over the past 10 days?
Iranian media reports scores of casualties. Iran has attacked U.S. bases around the region with missiles and drones, killing at least three U.S. service members since Friday. This week, the Department of Defense divulged that at least 100 U.S. troops have been injured in the last two weeks, most of whom returned to service.
What questions will senators ask about munitions, troop safety and war plans at Hegseth's hearing?
The Pentagon hasn't briefed the press since May, and the hearing today will be the first chance for senators from both parties to ask Hegseth publicly about the depletion of U.S.
How is the U.S. engaging Lebanon and what is the White House meeting aiming to achieve?
military munitions, safety of troops in the region, and how the U.S. plans to resolve the war. Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
President Trump meets with Lebanon's president today in Washington as the State Department tries to push forward a peace process between Israel and Lebanon. As Empire's Michelle Kellerman reports, the U.S. is trying to give Lebanon's president a boost.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he thinks it will be a good meeting at the White House, and President Joseph Aoun will be able to return to Lebanon and say he's getting real results for his people, not Hezbollah or Iran. At the moment, Israel controls much of southern Lebanon as it battles the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets across the border into Israel. The U.S. has negotiated what are called pilot zones to allow Lebanon to reestablish sovereignty in several areas in the south. Rubio says the U.S.
What is tropical storm Bertha’s projected path and how are Gulf Coast officials preparing?
is also talking to Lebanon about international investments and resuming flights from the U.S. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.
Tropical storm Bertha is churning slowly northward off the southeast coast in the Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center says the storm, with maximum sustained winds of 50 miles an hour, is about 110 miles southwest of Panama City, Florida, and some 170 miles east of Mobile, Alabama. This says officials in New Orleans start preparing for possible landfall tomorrow. Randy Heyman is the executive director of the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.
We take all events seriously and are prepared to enhance staffing levels across the utility to ensure that all teams are coordinated, positioned, and equipped to respond as conditions evolve.
Which major political and international stories are in today’s roundup (Russia, Senate race, and NPR funding)?
Bertha formed in the Gulf of Mexico late yesterday, and tropical storm watches and warnings are up for parts of the Gulf Coast. World financial markets, Asian markets mixed by the close, the Nikkei up 3.2 percent. You're listening to NPR News. A prominent Russian opposition figure says he'll drop out of electoral politics indefinitely amid state pressure. He had been a rare public voice in Russia against the war in Ukraine, as MPR's Charles Maines reports from Moscow.
Boris Nadezhdin had hoped to run for a spot in Russia's parliament this September. His campaign centered on his opposition to the war in Ukraine. Yet Nadezhdin says he'll stop fighting his exclusion from politics rather than risk jail time for him or his supporters. The decision follows recent weeks that saw the state label him a foreign agent and convict him of spreading extremist content on social media. While the latter only involved a small court fine, both technically disqualify him from public office, the Dejdan insists the moves are designed to silence him and other anti-war views ahead of the September vote, not despite polls that show a majority of Russians wanting an end to the war now in its fifth year.
Charles Mainz, NPR News, Moscow.
Republican Senator Darlene Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who's filling his seat temporarily, says she will run for the full six-year term in the state primary to be held next month.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:04
2
What is the latest on the Pentagon funding request for the Iran war?
0:04–0:30
3
How have U.S.-Iran strikes and troop casualties escalated over the past 10 days?
0:30–0:47
4
What questions will senators ask about munitions, troop safety and war plans at Hegseth's hearing?
0:47–0:56
5
How is the U.S. engaging Lebanon and what is the White House meeting aiming to achieve?
0:56–1:50
6
What is tropical storm Bertha’s projected path and how are Gulf Coast officials preparing?
1:50–2:43
7
Which major political and international stories are in today’s roundup (Russia, Senate race, and NPR funding)?
2:43–5:03