Strait Of Hormuz Crisis, Gas Price Politics, Iranian School Strike Investigation
Up First from NPR
NPR
4.6 • 59K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
President Trump, who campaigned on bringing gas prices down, is now tapping the strategic petroleum reserve as the war drives prices up.
And the Pentagon has determined the U.S. is responsible for a missile strike on a girls school in Iran that killed at least 165 civilians on day one of the war — NPR has learned the school had been walled off from a nearby military base years before the strike.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Rebekah Metzler, James Hider, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.
Our director is Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange
Our deputy Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.
(0:00) Introduction
(01:58) Strait Of Hormuz Crisis
(06:17) Gas Price Politics
(10:25) Iranian School Strike Investigation
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | President Trump says there's, quote, practically, nothing left to target in Iran as U.S. and Israeli |
| 0:07.4 | airstrikes continued on Tehran overnight. |
| 0:09.3 | Iran is losing the war in the air, but on the water has strangled traffic in the Strait |
| 0:13.5 | of Hormuz. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Leila Faudil. |
| 0:15.8 | That's Steven Skeep, and this is up first from NPR News. |
| 0:23.3 | Gas prices are rising because of the war. |
| 0:28.2 | And President Trump, who campaigned on bringing them down, is now calling it a very small price to pay. |
| 0:30.7 | Is that a price Americans are willing to accept? |
| 0:39.6 | Also, military investigators say the U.S. is responsible for a missile strike on a girl's school that killed at least 165 civilians. |
| 0:44.0 | NPR learned the school was walled off from a nearby military base years ago. |
| 0:48.6 | Why did the U.S. cut back on an office that helped to limit civilian casualties? |
| 0:57.8 | Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. One of the hotspots in the war in the Middle East is the Strait of Hormuz. |
| 1:02.1 | Yeah, there, in the last 24 hours, Iran struck several commercial ships. |
| 1:07.7 | Images of one ship in the Persian Gulf area show plumes of smoke rising above it. |
| 1:13.7 | The important passage for a lot of the world's oil is effectively closed, and Iran, therefore, |
| 1:18.6 | seems to have gained an advantage in the war at sea even while losing the war in the air. |
| 1:23.7 | NPR National Security correspondent Greg Myrie is covering all this, Greg. Good morning. |
| 1:27.2 | Hi, Steve. Where do you think the campaign stands? Well, Iran's air defenses have been so decimated that the |
| 1:33.6 | U.S. and the Israelis are sending warplanes over Iran whenever they wish with minimal risk at this point. |
| 1:40.5 | The Pentagon says that the U.S. has hit more than 5,000 targets, so we're talking close to 500 a day. |
| 1:46.8 | President Trump is sending a bit of a mixed message. He's suggesting the war could end soon because, as he said in an interview, there's practically nothing left to hit. |
... |
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