Good morning. Tax day is coming up, and refunds are trending higher this year. Have you finished filing? Here's the news we're following today:
President Trump has set a new deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. In a profane social media post, he threatened to bomb Iran's power plants and bridges if the country doesn't open the key waterway by 8 p.m. ET tomorrow. Last week, Trump said that countries reliant on oil coming through the Strait would have to secure it themselves. Civilian infrastructure is protected by international law. Trump also announced that U.S. forces on Sunday rescued a U.S. Air Force officer whose plane was shot down in Iran.
Alex Brandon/AP
🎧 NPR's Carrie Kahn is in Tel Aviv, where she tells Up First that it's been a "very intense" morning. She says that the airspace is not as secure as the U.S. and Israel have said it is. A strike in Haifa has killed Israelis, and Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have reported intercepting multiple missiles from Iran. There’s concern in the Gulf that its air defense systems won't be able to keep up if Iran escalates attacks. Iranian officials said Trump has "resorted to obscenities and nonsense out of sheer desperation and anger." The Iranian president's spokesman said that the Strait of Hormuz will only be opened once Iran has been compensated for the cost of the war.
🎧 NPR's Mara Liasson says the U.S. Air Force officer's rescue was good for the president, and would have been worse if it had devolved into a hostage situation. But she adds a reminder that the situation happened because Iran shot down a U.S. fighter jet, even though Trump said the U.S. had totally destroyed the country's military capabilities. Liasson says the president's back-and-forth on his goals for the Strait of Hormuz gives the impression that he doesn't have a clear political strategy. It's a tough spot for the president during a midterm year, Liasson says, since his approval rates are low and he ran on a promise not to start foreign wars.
➡️ Lebanon's government says Israel has killed at least 54 medics since the war with Iran began. Some human rights groups say first responders are being targeted — something that Israel denies.
NASA's Artemis II crew is expected to make its closest approach to the moon this afternoon, after launching from the Kennedy Space Center last week. As the Orion space capsule loops around the moon, the astronauts will go farther in space than any humans before them.
🎧 A team of lunar scientists on Earth has identified 35 targets on the surface of the moon for the astronauts to observe and photograph, according to Central Florida Public Media's Brendan Byrne. He says that even though robots already circle and photograph the moon, the human eye can see things cameras can't. The astronauts' data will give scientists a better understanding of the moon and help them pick landing sites for future robotic missions.
📷 The Artemis II crew has already delivered striking postcards from their journey. Check out these jaw-dropping shots of Earth and behind-the-scenes photos of what they've been up to in the cabin.
An update to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations, set to take effect at the end of the month, could make it easier for blind students to navigate their college education. The new rule set new standards for what accessibility should look like. “Just as stairs can exclude people who use wheelchairs from accessing government buildings, inaccessible web content and mobile apps can exclude people with a range of disabilities,” the rule says. The ADA has long required web accessibility, but the government had never established specific technical standards. NPR spoke to students who are blind. They shared how a lack of digital accessibility has blocked their educations and made them feel forgotten.
Today show host Savannah Guthrie returns to her position as co-anchor today, more than two months after her mother, Nancy Guthrie, went missing. Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the night of Jan. 31. Questions still linger about her whereabouts. The Guthrie family has publicly responded to ransom notes with video messages offering to pay for their mother's return home, but they have not received a response. Savannah Guthrie said that her mother largely inspired her to return to work despite her grief. "I won't let sadness win. For her," she said.
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Botanist Naomi Fraga has spent more than 15 years attempting to collect seeds from the rare Death Valley sage for safekeeping in a vault of native California seeds. She's come back empty-handed every time. The plant is challenging to study and sample, and climate change threatens its existence. Fraga often hikes up mountainsides and drives on backroads to find it. Some years, it doesn't flower at all, so there won't be any seeds. But a big bloom this year gives Fraga another chance to gather seeds. See photos of what she's found in Death Valley so far.
Curiosity didn’t go anywhere. It just got louder.
Every NPR story begins the same way: with a question.
Who?
How?
Why?
Before a producer’s finger taps ‘Record,’ before a journalist’s pen touches a notepad, someone like you notices something that doesn’t quite add up, or a change you can’t explain, and wants to understand it.
Below are recent NPR podcast episodes that started as burning questions. Maybe they’ll answer questions you had. Hopefully, they’ll inspire even more.
Because curiosity can’t be silenced, as long as we keep handing it a megaphone.
The Wireless Festival in North London has lost several major sponsors and drawn criticism from Prime Minister Keir Starmer after it announced that Ye would headline the festival for its entire three-night run in July.
The Writers Guild of America has reached a tentative agreement for a new contract with Hollywood studios. In 2023, the WGA went on a strike that lasted all summer and delayed production schedules for months.
Political instability and natural disasters hampered attendance at American museums in 2025, according to The Art Newspaper's annual survey of "the world's 100 most visited art museums."
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