Iran And Yemen's Houthis Blockade, Hegseth On Capitol Hill, Arizona Primary Day

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🗓️ 21 July 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

The war between the U.S. and Iran keeps widening as Yemen's Houthi rebels announce a blockade of Saudi Arabia that would choke off another key oil route, even as Iran signals it may be open to talks.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth heads to Capitol Hill today to ask lawmakers for a nearly 90 billion dollar funding boost for the war with Iran, in a rare chance for senators to question him after the Pentagon admitted 100 troops were wounded in the past two weeks and hasn't briefed reporters since May.
And it's the last day of primary voting in Arizona, a swing state that's become ground zero for election denialism, with big fall races taking shape for governor, a toss-up House seat, and secretary of state.

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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Tina Kraja, Andrew Sussman, Larry Kaplow, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.

It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas

Our director is Christopher Thomas

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(0:00) Introduction
(01:53) Iran And Yemen's Houthis Blockade
(05:31) Hegseth On Capitol Hill
(09:20) Arizona Primary Day

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Iran already controls one key waterway used for oil shipping in the Middle East.
0:06.4	Now Yemeni rebels backed by Iran are trying to cut off another one.
0:10.7	Will they succeed?
0:11.7	I'm Michelle Martin.
0:12.7	That's Leila Fadl and this is up first from NPR News.
0:20.0	17 American troops have died in the Iran War. The Pentagon says 100 more were wounded in the past two weeks.
0:26.3	Today, senators finally get to question Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth as he asked them for more money to fund an unpopular war.
0:32.9	And it's primary day in Arizona where Republican races will tell us how their voters feel about
0:38.7	election denial. There are candidates running who tried to overturn the 2020 election results.
0:44.0	Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
0:52.6	There's now a new element of uncertainty in the U.S. war with Iran.
0:57.5	For 10 days, the two sides have exchanged strikes as Iran continues to assert control over the strait of Hormuz.
1:03.6	Now, Yemen's Iranian-backed rebels say they will blockade another waterway on the other side of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea.
1:10.1	With me now is NPR's Emily
1:11.4	Fang, who is in Tel Aviv to talk about this. Emily, good morning. Good morning, Leila. So tell us more about this threat of a blockade. Where would it be? So it would be in this waterway called the Bob Al-Mandib Strait. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and ultimately the Indian Ocean on one end. And on the other, the Suez Canal all the way up to the Mediterranean Sea.
1:30.9	And this straight-let Saudi Arabia, which is one of the biggest oil producers in the world,
1:35.2	now get millions of barrels of oil a day out to the open ocean for export.
1:40.0	And it needs this straight, especially because another waterway,
1:43.4	the Strait of Hormuz, has been effectively closed by the U.S. Iran War.
1:47.2	So any Houthi blockade would rattle energy markets even more and raise energy prices even higher.
1:52.8	Wow. Just remind people, Emily, for people who don't pay close attention to this, who the Houthis are.
1:58.2	They are a Yemeni Shiite militant group.
	...

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