NPR News Now - NPR News: 04-09-2026 1PM EDT

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. The fragile U.S.-Iraun ceasefire continues, though Iran has restricted the strait of Hormuz again, angry that Israel continues to bomb Lebanon. Iran says Lebanon was covered in the two-week deal, but Israel and the U.S. say it wasn't. Lebanese officials say more than 250 people died in the bombings yesterday and declared a day of morning. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will start direct negotiations with Lebanon on disarming the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. And Vice President J.D. Vance is leading peace talks between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan, which are scheduled to take place Saturday. Empir Zaya Betrawi has more on what's on the table for the talks.

The U.S., Israel and Gulf partners want Iran to stop nuclear enrichment, pause its ballistic missile production, and support to groups like Hezbollah and open that straight fully. Iran, on its part, wants compensation for the war, sanctions, It says its missiles are a red line and maintains that it has a right to enrichment. So if these talks take place, it says Israel and Iran each say they, quote, have their finger on the trigger and with each side, including President Trump, claiming victory going into these talks. And peers, I have a trawi. Energy traffic in the Middle East remains snarled despite that tentative ceasefire.

And Pierre Scott Horsley has more on the economic ripple effects here at home. Crude oil prices rose as a fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran failed to provide much relief for bottleneck tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. AAA says retail gasoline prices showed little change overnight, hovering around $4.16 a gallon. Diesel prices rose, about two cents a gallon. High gasoline prices are expected to push the government's cost-a-living measure up when March inflation numbers are released tomorrow. Even before the war, prices were climbing faster than the Federal Reserve would like.

The Commerce Department says the U.S. economy grew more slowly than the final months of 2025 than earlier reports had indicated. A final tally says GD. Grew at an annual rate of just half a percent in October, November, and December. Scott Horsley, and Pair, News, Washington. A former Army employee is facing federal criminal charges for allegedly leaking classified information. And here's Ryan Lucas has more. Courtney Williams has been charged with communicating and transmitting classified information.

Court papers say the 40-year-old worked for a special military unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and that between 2022 and 2025 Williams had phone calls and text messages with a journalist in which she provided details about tactics, techniques, and procedures used by military operators. The journalist later published an article and a book containing statements attributed to Williams that allegedly contained classified information. Court documents also cite text messages Williams allegedly sent afterwards in which she expressed concern about the amount of classified information in the published materials and said she could get arrested because of it. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.

This is NPR News. Israeli strikes have killed three journalists in Lebanon and Gaza since the ceasefire. The Committee to Protect Journalists says one worked for a Hezbollah news outlet in Lebanon, while another worked for Al Jazeera in Gaza. Al Jazeera says Mohamed Wishah is the 11th journalist from their network to be killed in Gaza. CPJ says Israel's attacks on the press should be independently investigated as war crimes. Federal forecasters say it's looking increasingly likely that an LNNs, Nino weather pattern will emerge this fall.

And Pierce-Lorin-Summer reports the natural climate shift can have major effects on rain and temperatures. You can think of El Nino as the planet redistributing its heat. Warm ocean water develops in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which has a big effect on the atmosphere. Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say an El Nino will likely begin this summer or fall. And it could be a big one, a super El Nino. That doesn't always produce big weather impacts, but typically it means more rain in the southern U.S. and drier weather in the northern U.S. Globally, the hottest years on record have been El Nino years.

Lauren Summer and PR News. Initial jobless claims last week rose slightly. The Labor Department says the number of people filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 219,000 from the week before. That's the highest since early February. The less volatile four-week moving average rose 1,500 to 209,500. Wall Street's trading higher at this hour. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News in Washington.