It's the Brian Laris Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Here in week three of the war against Iran,

you know some of the headline developments, most notably from a U.S. and global impact

standpoint. The Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed, as President Trump asked other

countries to send their militaries to help escort ships through, and gasoline is up more than

80 cents a gallon on average in the U.S. at last report, at least temporarily, much more

in countries that depend more on Middle East oil than the U.S. does. The war is still widening

in that respect, right? So how to resolve the Strait of Hormuz issue, how much power Iran has

to keep that front open is a key question right now. Also, how much of Iran's

military supply or enriched uranium supply has to be destroyed for the U.S. to declare victory.

Now, NPR was reporting this morning that about 70% of their missiles have been destroyed.

Iran is definitely being weakened militarily to a very substantial

degree. How much is the goal? But I also want to start the week by mentioning two things,

getting less attention. One is simply that tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, and the Pentagon says

they're celebrating it in cities around the country. Nothing wrong with St. Patrick's Day. And the Pentagon says they're celebrating it in cities around the country.

Nothing wrong with St. Patrick's Day and celebrating Irish Heritage. We will do some of that

here on the show tomorrow. But this after the Pentagon, under Pete Hackseth, banned just

about every other kind of official identity observance, Black and Women's History Months, Martin Luther King

Day, Holocaust Remembrance Days, anything LGBTQ, is St. Patrick's Day an exception because

Irish people are white or the holiday has a Christian religious underpinning and it doesn't

look like identity to him? The other one the Pentagon observed this

year was Mardi Gras, a time of partying, as you know, to kind of get it out of your system

before the Christian observance of Lent. So why are those? I'm wondering, maybe our guest who

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