NPR News: 04-07-2026 7PM EDT

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. President Trump says the U.S. will suspend bombing Iran for two weeks as long as Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz. The statement comes after Trump pledged that a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again if a deal wasn't reached by 8 o'clock Eastern tonight. Now, Trump has posted on social media that this will be a double-sided ceasefire and that the U.S. received a 10-point peace proposal from Iran which he said was workable. Some Iranians formed human chains around power plants and across bridges today, as NPR's Aya Batrawe reports. This is a regime that will fight for its survival. Iran's President Masoud Pazeskin posted on X Today that Iranians are volunteering to fight in large numbers. He says millions are ready to sacrifice their lives to defend Iran, himself included. And Iran is threatening that if its electricity stations are bombed, it will hit power plants in Gulf, Arab states and Israel. There's still round-the-clock mediation efforts led by Pakistan for Iran to try to open the Strait for two weeks in exchange for Trump extending this deadline by two weeks. NPR's Aya Batrawe reporting. The Justice Department's new leader says nobody except President Trump knows why Pam Bondi was replaced as Attorney General last week. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made the comment when asked at an unrelated news conference if Bondi lost her job because she was not successful in bringing criminal cases against Trump's perceived adversaries. Blanche said he didn't feel pressure in the job despite Trump's oft-stated desire for retribution, though he said that the president was entitled to seek investigations against former government officials he believes has wronged him. Hedge Fund billionaire Bill Ackman wants to buy a universal music group, the record label behind Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift. NPR's Maria Aspen reports on Ackman's latest attempt to become a music mogul, Universal's the world's largest record label, and Ackman has wanted a piece of it for years. Bill Ackman's Pershing Square hedge fund first invested in Universal back in 2021, and he sat on its board until last year. Now he wants to own the whole thing. Pershing has offered to pay Universal shareholders a mix of cash and stock, in a deal valued at more than $60 billion. Ackman is what's known as an activist investor, meaning he pushes for change at the companies he owns. He's long wanted Universal to move its financial list seen to New York from Amsterdam, and his new proposal would do just that. But the deal is far from done. Ackman will have to convince two-thirds of Universal's other investors to agree to sell him the company. Maria Aspen and PR News. Delta Airlines is joining a growing list of carriers raising checked bag fees. His higher fuel costs ripple through the airline industry. United Airlines and JetBlue also raised fees this week. Jet fuel is refined from crude oil and typically ranks as the second largest expense for airlines after labor. This is NPR News. New research shows that financial gains for many black-led nonprofits after George Floyd's murder were short-lived. According to a study by Candid and ABFE, only a subset of large black-led nonprofits saw temporary funding increases. New funders tended to finance black-led nonprofits only for one year instead of sustaining great grant recipients' longer-term goals. CBS has announced that the late show with Stephen Colbert will be replaced with Byron Allen's comics unleashed. As NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports, Allen is a media titan who began his career as a standup. Byron Allen made his TV standup debut on The Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson in 1979. He was still in high school. Today, his Allen media group produces and syndicates all kinds of entertainment and owns the Weather Channel. Allen's comics unleashed currently airs after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. On May 22, it will move to Colbert's 11.35 p.m. time slot. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News. An American Airlines flight was delayed in Charlotte, North Carolina after a swarm of bees tried to hitch a ride to San Francisco on one of the plane's turbines. According to WSOC-TV, the bee swarm was recorded by a passenger who said the flight was delayed by about an hour as someone removed the bees from the turbine. After wide swings, US stocks closed largely flat today. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Join this podcast sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR News Now Plus at plus.npr.org.