NPR News: 09-12-2026 3PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Saudi Arabia says it shut down a major oil pipeline after it was attacked by drones yesterday. Amphiars-Hadil al-Shulchi reports the move puts another vital oil-shipping route at risk as Iran continues to blockade the strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said the drones were launched from Iraq and targeted the East-West pipeline in the areas around Riyadh and Medina. It said that the attacks resulted in injuries and damage to the pipeline. The Iraqi Prime Minister ordered an investigation. On Friday, the Houthis captured a strategic island in the Bebebel-Mendab strait at the entrance of the Red Sea. The rebel group has been fighting Yemeni government forces, which are backed by Saudi Arabia, and it controls most of Yemen's north and capital. The Houthis have been attacking Saudi oil tankers moving through Bebebel-Mendab, which is a vital shipping channel near the Red Sea. The Houthis' deal al-Shulchi and PR News is stumble. Meanwhile, President Trump, speaking from Ireland where he's on a two-day visit, says Iran

1:04was most likely behind the attack. The Iran's border is not the only one that has been attacked. I think they are probably there. They're on the balls of their feet right now, but I think they have been in charge of that for a while. The pipeline's shutdown could add even more pressure to energy prices. Stocks on Wall Street overall fell this week as energy prices soared. Ampure Scott Horsley reports a market rally yesterday wasn't enough to reverse losses earlier in the week. An escalation of the U.S. war with Iran pushed crude oil prices higher. Retail gasoline prices in the U.S. jumped about 15 cents a gallon during the week, while the price of diesel fuel topped $6 a gallon for the first time ever. Rising energy prices are keeping inflation elevated. Consumer prices in August were up 3.4 percent from a year ago. Friday's inflation report left investors more confident.

2:06The Federal Reserve will raise interest rates when policymakers meet next week. Stocks rose on Friday, but for the week, the NASDAQ lost two-thirds of a percent. The S&P 500 index fell 8 tenths of a percent, and the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 1.6 percent. Scott Horsley in Pairnews, Washington. The CEO of Anthropic says the artificial intelligence industry should slow its fast-moving development in order to give safety measures some time to catch up. Without it, Dario Amade says AI could be capable within six to twelve months of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet among other risks. This comes a day after one of the company's employees quit over concerns about the safety of AI, and Anthropic is a financial supporter of NPR. You're listening to NPR news from Washington. Mill invoting for the midterm elections is underway in some states, including Alabama,

3:06North Carolina, and Wisconsin. This even though the Supreme Court is still deciding whether to allow the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots in some states where election officials don't turn over voter lists to the Post Office and that don't have certain barcodes on the ballot envelopes. A federal judge blocked those requirements. The United States Postal Service is a financial supporter of NPR. New study finds that laws requiring age restrictions on social media apps aren't effective, appears retoucher J. reports the research appears in JAMA Network Open. Researchers looked at nearly 40 published studies on the effectiveness of various social media-related legislations across the world and the United States. In the U.S. 2.3 of eleven and twelve-year-olds, use social media despite a minimum age requirement of thirteen. Study author Dr. Jason Nregata is a pediatrician at the University of California San Francisco.

4:06He says age verification is crucial to protecting miners from the harms of social media. There's a lot of other strategies are really dependent on the fact that we can identify underage or minor users. He says social media companies are already using sophisticated algorithms for targeted content. And they could also use them for age verification of miners. Retro-chatty and PR news. And I'm Janine Herbst. And you're listening to NPR News from Washington. On the next through line from NPR. Let's listen to Josh Reddick's new walk-ups on it. Whether you love it or you hate it, walk-up music has become a huge part of Major League Baseball. The need to secure the attention of the fans is relentless. I thought am I hearing things? I mean, I realize everybody's singing along. Listen to NPR's through line in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.