NPR News: 03-12-2026 9AM EDT

0:00Who should win the Oscar for the best original song this year? On the latest all songs considered from NPR music, we rank the nominees. I think Diane Warren should have won two Academy Awards. The problem is very often the lyrics are not much more insightful than you would find on the nearest throw pillow. Here's the NPR music podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kurova Coleman. This is day 13 of the US and Israeli war in Iran. Israel is also battling Iran's proxy militia, Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Hezbollah has launched its big its rocket attack against Israel since the current conflict started and Pierce Daniel Estran reports from Tel Aviv. The Israeli military reports the Iranian backed Hezbollah launched heavy rocket fire toward Israel's north throughout the night. Israel launched attacks in Lebanon against Hezbollah sites. Lebanon, which does not have diplomatic ties with Israel, has unusually called for direct talks with Israel to end the escalating

1:00fighting with Hezbollah. Israel has not officially responded. Israeli strikes on Iran continue. As Iran fires missiles at Israel intermittently every day and overnight. Israeli military officials say about half of the missiles Iran has launched at Israel have had cluster warheads that spread out into smaller bombs in the air with a wide impact radius. Daniel Estran NPR News Tel Aviv Stock markets remain uneasy over the conflict. Part of that is because Iran has effectively cut off oil shipments from Persian Gulf nations. Iran controls the state of Hormuz, at least six ships including oil tankers have been attacked in the region in the past two days. President Trump says the US will release 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN this morning he expects that release will help calm oil markets. The disruption of oil, temporary disruption of oil through the straits of Hormuz, that's what the strategic petroleum reserve is for. So as we have a shortage of market coming

2:05through that avenue, we're going to bring oil to market through other avenues to get through a few weeks of a short-term dislocation to get to a much better place on the other side. But that confidence is not being reflected in oil markets. The benchmark caused for crude oil has risen close to $100 per barrel. President Trump is continuing to tout the success of the US military and visit yesterday to Kentucky. From Kentucky Public Radio, Silvia Goodman has more. To a cheering crowd, Trump proclaimed the ongoing war in Iran a success. He said the conflict was essentially decided in the first hour, but warned he didn't want to leave too soon. As we end this threat to America and this threat to the world, we don't want to leave early, do we? We got to finish the job, right? According to a new NPR PBS Marist poll, 36% approve of Trump's handling of the war, while more than half of the nearly 1600 respondents opposed it. Trump also used the rally as a chance to rail against Republican Congressman Thomas

3:08Masi, who has been a frequent thorn in the President's side. Masi sponsored a failed war powers resolution to end US military action in Iran. From here news, I'm Silvia Goodman in Hebron, Kentucky. This is NPR. The Trump administration is launching new trade investigations. One of them will look at what's called excess industrial capacity in 16 major trading partners. These include China and the European Union. The second probe will examine other countries' regulations on forced labor. The Trump administration's efforts here come after the Supreme Court overturned some of Trump's signature tariffs last month. A strong El Nino weather pattern could be on the way this summer. NPR's Rebecca Hirscher reports that would drive up global temperatures in the second half of this year. El Nino happens when the water in the eastern Pacific is warmer than usual. It causes global average temperatures to rise slightly. When you combine that with the much larger warming effects of humans burning fossil fuels,

4:10you often get record-breaking heat. A long, strong El Nino in 2023 and 2024 led both of those years to shattered global temperature records. Now, federal forecasters say it's likely El Nino will return between June and August. That would also affect regional weather patterns in the US. The South generally sees more rain and lower temperatures in years when El Nino is active, and El Nino also makes it more difficult for hurricanes to form in the Atlantic. Rebecca Hirscher and PR News. A significant storm is plowing across the southeastern US this morning. There are tornado watches up in South Carolina and Georgia. The storms come as parts of southern Illinois and Indiana clear wreckage from deadly tornadoes this week. Two people were killed in Indiana. This is NPR News.