NPR News: 03-26-2026 8AM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman, Pakistan's Foreign Minister says that indirect talks are taking place through messages between the U.S. and Iran. Writing online, the Pakistani Foreign Minister says his country is relaying these messages and the U.S. has shared 15 points which Iran is deliberating. Israel is not mentioned. Today, Israel says it's killed the top officer in Iran's revolutionary-guard Navy in an overnight strike. Israel is not officially commented. NPR's Daniel Estrin says despite discussion of a ceasefire, Israel is continuing its airstrikes. Israel wants to keep fighting. Two military officials told me they're hoping for weeks more of war in Iran. I spoke to another person briefed on the operation, not authorized to speak publicly, who said the Israeli military is speeding up its targeting in Iran right now over the next 48 hours, trying to hit as many Iranian arms factories as it can in case a ceasefire is declared.

1:00NPR's Daniel Estrin reporting, new forecasts warn that food prices in Europe could surge if disruptions tied to the war continue, but NPR's Windsor Johnston reports the effect may look different in the U.S. Forecasts in the United Kingdom suggest food inflation could climb above 8 percent if energy markets remain disrupted, raising concerns about how those pressures could spread globally. But Food Economist David Ortega says the U.S. is less exposed to those risks. We produce a lot of the oil that we consume here in the United States. We also produce fertilizer. Now we rely on imports of fertilizer and certainly the world price of fertilizer impacts what our farmers pay. Ortega says that makes the U.S. somewhat more insulated than countries that rely more heavily on imports. Still, he says rising costs for fuel and fertilizer are already pushing up expenses for farmers and those increases are expected to reach consumers in the months ahead. Windsor Johnston and NPR News. Immigration and customs enforcement deployments to U.S. cities are a central part of President

2:03Trump's immigration crackdown. A new NPR analysis finds some cities are facing huge bills. NPR's Jacqueline Diaz has more. In Los Angeles, the surge of immigration enforcement agents in June meant that LAPD had to spend big on overtime to respond to protests. Around $17 million on overtime for just eight days in June. In Portland, a federal ICE facility in the city became a big protest site. And local police say their response times for service calls more than doubled because officers had to be at the building. In a statement, the White House told NPR that people who are in the U.S. illegally cost Americans more than $100 billion in 2023. NPR could not independently verify those numbers. Jacqueline Diaz, NPR News. You're listening to NPR. The Pentagon says the U.S. military has struck another alleged drug boat in the Caribbean

3:05killing four people. The Trump administration has killed more than 160 people in similar boat strikes in September. Today is the first of nine equal pay days throughout the year. The symbolic day marks how far into the new year women must work in order to make what men earned the previous year. At the Air's Andrea Shoe reports, this year's equal pay day comes a day later this year. For the second year in a row, women have lost ground. Women working full time year round earn 81 cents for every dollar men earn. That's down three cents over the past couple of years. The latest data, compiled by the Census Bureau, is actually from 2024. So the widening of the gender wage gap can't be explained by anything that's happened since President Trump returned to office. And in fact, former President Biden was supportive of pay equity efforts. What the Census Bureau did find was that the median wage for men increased by just over three and a half percent, while women's wages remain stagnant. The gender pay gap is even wider for women of color.

4:07Black women's equal pay day will be marked in July. Latina equal pay day in October. Andrea Shoe and PR News. It was two years ago today, an enormous cargo ship crashed into a major Baltimore bridge. The Francis Scott Keybridge collapsed before dawn, killing six workers. A major highway was severed, causing economic woes for Maryland. State officials now say a new design for a bridge is almost finished. They hope to rebuild it by 2030. John Corva Coleman and PR News.