NPR News: 03-09-2026 12PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Celebrations in Tehran this morning on News, a new Supreme Leader has been named to succeed his father, who was killed in Israeli strikes on the first day of the U.S. Israel war against Iran. The developments met with mixed reactions, though, around the globe, and PR's Aya Batrawi has more on the 56-year-old successor. A body known as the Assembly of Experts overwhelmingly chose Moshtabah Khameini as Iran's new Supreme Leader. He's viewed as a hardliner with close ties to security, who helped lead violent crackdowns on anti-government protesters. The paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps congratulated Moshtabah Khameini's ascension to succeed his father, Ayatullah Ali Khameini. The IRGC said in a statement that it pledges obedience to the new leader and urged Iranians to heed his command in the face of, quote, bloodthirsty, arrogant powers. Political leaders in Iran and the country's Supreme National Security Council also pledged

1:01allegiance to the new leader. Iran's health ministry says U.S. Israeli strikes have killed 1,200 people, a third of them women and children. Aya Batrawi and Pair News, Dubai. The war in Iran pushed global crude oil prices past $100 per barrel for the first time in four years. NPR's Camila Domenoski reports the past week has caused traders to lose hope for a quick resolution to the conflict. The Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the oil trade, remains effectively closed. The U.S. government has offered shipowners insurance and naval escorts for the passage, but the money available would only cover a fraction of the need, and companies are wary of risking ships and the lives of their crew. Attacks against infrastructure also continue, including Israel's attacks on oil facilities in Tehran over the weekend. An analyst with the app gas buddy says the average price of gasoline in the U.S. is likely to hit $4 this week. It was under $3 before the war began, Camila Domenoski and Pair News. In a major win for employees at Voice of America, federal judges ruled Trump loyalists carry

2:05lake illegally ran its parent entity, the U.S. Agency for Global Media last year. The court finds the mass layoffs lake oversaw there and it via way are void. NBA's David Fokenflick was the first journalist to question lake's legal authority to run B.O.A. Kerry Lake and President Trump have attacked it as basically being propaganda and hostile to President Trump itself. She sought to effectively dismantle it, so she laid off hundreds and hundreds of employees at Voice of America and a couple of its sister networks. She tried to cut off funding from other networks like Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty that are funded by the federal government to reach other foreign lands. She canceled a contract for new headquarters that her predecessor said would save tens of millions of dollars for the federal government and she basically tried to cut these things down to the bone to essentially make it impossible for them to continue to function. That's NPR's David Fokenflick reporting, it's NPR News. New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tish says, authorities are now investigating

3:06whether an incident during counter-protest outside New York City's mayoral resident Saturday was inspired by the Islamic State. Tish says, men brought improvised explosive devices that were hurled during the Saturday but demonstration led by far right activist Jake Lang. Tish says the devices did not explode, two people are in custody but have not been charged. Dozens of countries are meeting in Jamaica this week to develop rules from mining the deep sea. Some countries are pushing the harvest critical minerals there to use in batteries and other technology and PR's Lauren Summer has to tails. More than 10,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, there are potato-sized rocks on the sea floor. They're polymetallic nodules which grow slowly over millions of years accumulating metals like nickel and cobalt. With demand for batteries growing, mining companies are pushing to start commercially harvesting them. In science to say, that could hurt the deep sea ecosystem where the majority of life is

4:07still unknown to science. Countries are meeting this week to negotiate rules about mining and international waters. The Trump administration is not part of that process and is moving ahead on its own with permitting deep sea mining. Lauren Summer and PR News. US stocks trading lower this hour with the Dow down 428 points are nearly 1% at 47,072. The S&Ps down 30 points at 6709, the NASDAQ is down 13 points. This is NPR News. Listen to this podcast sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR News Now Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.