NPR News: 03-26-2026 3PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. In President Trump's first public cabinet meeting since the start of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, today the Republican leaders said talks to end the conflict have been productive. And P.R. Tamarkeeth has new details. Earlier this week, Trump teased that Iran had given him a present. Now he's saying what it was. They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there. We're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago. Then Trump said he saw on the news that the tankers had been allowed to pass through the straight of Hormuz unharmed. And I said, well, I guess we're dealing with the right people. This mid-east envoy, Steve Whitcoff, said U.S. negotiators presented a 15-point action list that could form a framework for a peace deal. Iranian state TV says Tehran does not want a temporary pause.

1:01Tamarkeeth and P.R. News, the White House. Then, as well as austed president, Nikolás Maduro and his wife were back in federal court today in Manhattan. It was their second court appearance since they were captured in a U.S. military raid in January and brought to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. And P.R.'s Ryan Lucas reports, Nikolás Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, have pleaded not guilty to the charges. At the hearing in federal court in Lower Manhattan, both Maduro and his wife were dressed in beige jumpsuits and headphones, through which they listened to the proceedings via an interpreter. The hearing focused on a dispute over allowing the Venezuelan government to pay for the Maduro's legal defense. Maduro's attorney says the U.S. isn't allowing Venezuela to pick up the tab. He says that interferes with Maduro's constitutional right to counsel and the case should be dismissed. Prosecutors say the Venezuelan government can't pay because it is under American sanctions. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein did not rule for the bench on the matter and noted that this case is unique. Ryan Lucas and P.R. News, New York.

2:02Social media giants are facing what many describe as a massive reckoning following defeat in two landmark cases this week. One was in California where a court said the way meta and Google built their platforms could get children hooked, they were ordered to pay a total of 6 million in damages. Francis Hogan was a Facebook whistleblower. She says her former bosses have the tools to keep people better protected, but chose not to. Like, turn off notifications late at night. Turn off notifications in the middle of the school day. Intentionally, alerting users are allowing users to reduce how much negative content they see if they want to. And that's what the jurors heard. And the reason why they gave so much in damages was that Facebook had lots of tools in their tool chest, but they chose not to use them. How can speaking with NPRs here and now, and we should note, Google is a financial supporter of NPR. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 400 points. From Washington, this is NPR News. Members of Congress are set to vote on advancing a bill to fund the Department of Homeland

3:05Security. A top official at the Transportation Security Administration said if the partial government shutdown continued tomorrow, TSA will have missed nearly a billion dollars in paychecks since the shutdown began weeks ago. Howell-Win McNeill also told lawmakers that at some major airports travelers have waited more than four hours at security checkpoints as more TSA officers call out sick at rates of 40 to 50%. Bill Marp is set to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American humor after all. NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports President Trump does not appear to be a fan of Marp, but the Kennedy Center announced it's giving it to him anyway. After the Atlantic magazine cited anonymous sources saying that Bill Marp would be receiving the prestigious Mark Twain Prize, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt called it fake news. But the Kennedy Center has announced Marp will indeed be getting the Twain Award. The host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Marp has visited with Trump at the White House, but he has also been critical of both parties, and Trump in particular.

4:09The stock market is going down and we've lost a lot of jobs. It's like his even more evil twin replaced his usual evil twin. Trump recently called Mar a lightweight on social media. In a statement from the Kennedy Center, Marp said it is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who's been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.