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Today's top stories
Iran is evaluating the Trump administration's latest proposal to end the war, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said yesterday. President Trump says the U.S. is on the verge of a deal, and the Iranians are desperate to make one. But there has not yet been a definitive Iranian response to the U.S. proposal.
- 🎧 Trump has said that the U.S. has won the war, but very few of his objectives in the conflict have been met, NPR's Mara Liasson tells Up First. The U.S. has not pulled its military forces from the area. Trump has again said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But the president hasn't been happy with what Iran has told him on that matter so far, Liasson says. Many U.S. allies and adversaries are concluding that Trump is making up his talking points about the conflict as he goes, she adds. They believe that he wants to withdraw as soon as possible because the war in Iran is politically damaging him and his party during a midterm year.
Big oil companies are beginning to report their quarterly earnings, which show they have been significantly affected by the war in Iran and its impact on oil prices. The U.S. intervention in Venezuela has also played a major role. So far, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Chevron have shared their reports, with more companies set to follow.
- 🎧 This quarter highlighted an accounting quirk: Chevron and Exxon's profits appear to be down in the short term, but they will actually be up in the long term, NPR's Camila Domonoske says. Much of the profits the companies have made from selling oil at higher prices haven't been recorded yet because it takes time to physically deliver those shipments. Exxon said that if you factor in those deliveries, its profits are twice what they show on paper. The companies anticipate that prices will remain high and could get higher even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Domonoske says that's because restoring production takes time, and the world will want a lot of oil to rebuild stockpiles. High prices at the pump pose a risk to oil companies because if they persist for too long, demand drops and the economy could crash.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican today. His visit comes after weeks of attacks from Trump against the first American pope. Leo has strongly criticized the U.S. and Israel's war on Iran, advocated for diplomacy and warned against the use of force. Last month, Trump labeled Pope Leo as "weak" and "terrible on foreign policy." On Monday, Trump said that the pope was "endangering a lot of Catholics" by opposing the war.
- 🎧 Rubio has the tough job of showing respect to Pope Leo while also representing an administration whose leader has repeatedly attacked him, reporter Megan Williams says. He must avoid irritating the Vatican in ways Vice President Vance — who claimed Catholic teachings endorse a harsh crackdown on immigration and other issues — has. With midterm elections six months away, the White House doesn't want conservative Catholic voters to think Trump is anti-pope. Rubio will also meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who until recently was one of the president's closest allies in Europe. But attacking the pope doesn't go over well in Italy. She has called Trump's comments unacceptable, and Trump turned on her after she defended Leo. Rubio and Meloni are likely to talk about Iran in their meeting, Williams says.
Campaign staffers are making thousands of dollars by betting on their own candidate on prediction markets using private polling data. A campaign staffer, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear for their future employment, told NPR they doubted the results of an unreleased poll showing their candidate up by a lot in a tight race. The staffer knew the poll would shake up the prediction markets and that it didn't align with the campaign's internal numbers. The staffer and others started making bets before the poll came out. The staffer's bet was verified by prediction market data reviewed by NPR. In recent weeks, the popular prediction market Kalshi has banned and fined several political candidates for placing bets on themselves. These wagers raise concerns about how campaign operatives might exploit private information for quick financial gain amid an unsettled legal landscape.
Today's listen
Mariachi brothers Antonio, Caleb and Joshua Gámez-Cuéllar are living a dream shared by five generations of their musical family. But their journey to this point wasn't smooth. Federal immigration authorities detained the young brothers and their parents earlier this year after a required check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They were released following bipartisan outcry from Texas politicians. The family came to the U.S. from Mexico in 2023 through a Biden-era program called CBP One, which allowed them to remain legally in the U.S. while their asylum claims were considered. Now, as they wait for a new immigration court date, the brothers have opened for eight-time Grammy Award winner Kacey Musgraves. The country singer heard about their story and invited them on the Texas leg of her Middle of Nowhere tour. Listen to snippets of the trio's performance and read more about their story.
Deep dive
The U.S. Forest Service is entering this year's fire season with significantly less work completed than in previous years to manage the dry, flammable vegetation that can lead to catastrophic fires. Last year, the Forest Service reduced vegetation on almost 1.5 million fewer acres than in 2024, according to an analysis of the agency's data by NPR and firefighting experts. This is a significant decrease from more than 4 million acres of hazardous vegetation work completed during the last year of the Biden administration. As conditions have grown hotter, the buildup of dense vegetation has fueled extreme fires that have torn through vast stretches of land. The Forest Service lost 16% of its workforce as of last summer as part of the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the government's size.
- 🔥 Controlled burns improve forest health and give wildland firefighters a better chance of fighting forest fires in challenging conditions.
- 🔥 The Forest Service has long said that prescribed burns are a priority. In 2022, the agency set a goal to reduce flammable fuels on an additional 20 million acres over the next decade.
- 🔥 Prescribed burning fell to about 900,000 acres in 2025, according to an NPR analysis of agency data. In both 2023 and 2024, it reached over 1.6 million acres.
- 🔥 Forest Service chief Tom Schultz testified that the agency had hired approximately 9,700 firefighters as of early March, a slight increase from last year. Firefighting experts say these new hires don't necessarily replace key support staff that was lost.
- 🔥 As wildfires become more extreme, agency personnel have less time to reduce vegetation, setting the stage for even larger blazes, experts say.
3 things to know before you go
- CNN founder Ted Turner died yesterday at the age of 87. Before his 80th birthday, he announced he had Lewy Body Dementia, a degenerative disease that causes dementia and muscle failure.
- In this week's edition of Far-Flung Postcards, NPR's Katerina Barton takes readers to the village of Torosiaje in Indonesia. She arrived at the location on a water taxi to the sunset view of colorful stilted houses perched over the Molucca Sea.
- A third sloth died at the Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens on Monday. It was one of at least 61 imported from South America for Sloth World, a canceled Orlando attraction. According to state records, at least 34 of those sloths have died. (via Central Florida Public Media)
This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
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