NPR News: 03-11-2026 8PM EDT

Who should win the Oscar for the best original song this year? On the latest all songs considered from NPR Music, we rank the nominees. I think Diane Warren should have won two Academy Awards. The problem is very often the lyrics are not much more insightful than you would find on the nearest throw pillow. Hear the NPR Music podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. The U.S. and Israel started attacking Iran nearly two weeks ago. Some 2,000 people are believed to have been killed, with Lebanon's death toll from Israeli strikes climbing to more than 600. The Israeli army is hitting southern Lebanon in the suburbs of Beirut as it targets Hezbollah strongholds. And Piers Hadil al-Shalchi reports that humanitarian groups are alarmed. At the SportsCity football stadium on the outskirts of Beirut, nearly 800 people are now crammed into white tents pitched by volunteers. People haven't had access to clean bathrooms and say they haven't showered for days. Samr Safah is the general manager of Mahzumi Foundation, a non-profit trying to help equip the stadium to make it more livable. He says resources are very limited. What we have budgeted for within this year we cannot cater for half a million displaced Safah says organizations like his are feeling the impact of President Trump cuts to international humanitarian aid, making it difficult to provide essential services to those in need in Lebanon. Hadil Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Beirut. A British warship, the HMS Dragon, has departed southern England for Cyprus, where a British military base was hit by an Iranian drone. The U.K. has given Washington limited use of its military bases for the war on Iran, as NPR's Lauren Freyer reports from London. American B-1 Lancer bombers are thundering over the Cotswolds, a rural area west of London that's home to a Royal Air Force base. U.S. warplanes have been taking off and landing there. Photos show a mini crane carrying huge missiles across the tarmac. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has expressed legal concerns about U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, and has granted the U.S. only limited access to British bases for defensive operations only. But it's unclear how the British government can police that. Lauren Fryer, NPR News, London. A mixed day for the markets as the price of oil rose again but inflation held steady NPR Maria Aspen reports a down dropped and the S 500 down slightly The tech Nasdaq saw a modest gain The global oil supply got some relief from the war with Iran after countries in the International Energy Agency agreed to release strategic reserves But the price of Brent crude oil still went up, and U.S. stock markets still went down. Investors also shrugged off the latest government data on inflation, which held steady last month, in line with economists' expectations. But that data was collected before the war in the Middle East started driving up gas prices. There was some good news for tech investors. Shares in Oracle soared after Larry Ellison's software company reported earnings that beat expectations and reassured some of Wall Street's ongoing anxiety about an AI bubble. Maria Aspin, NPR News. This is NPR News. The Trump administration is planning to release 172 million barrels of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve, part of a wider release coordinated by the International Energy Agency aimed at calming energy markets amid the Iran war. The IEA, based in Paris, says it will make a record 400 million barrels available from the emergency reserves of its member countries The U share amounts to more than 40 percent of the release Student loan borrowers could be getting wrong information from the companies that manage their loans. That's according to the Nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Here's NPR's Corey Turner. GAO found the U.S. Department of Education stopped two key pieces of oversight under President Trump. One, staff used to listen back to recordings of phone calls between borrowers and call center workers to make sure they were getting accurate information. And two, department staff would do special data accuracy checks, because loan servicer records can be pretty unreliable. Before these reviews stopped, GAO found that four of the five servicers failed that data check. The Trump administration says these reviews do not meaningfully measure servicer performance, but department officials told GAO the problem was staff capacity. The reviews stopped early last year as the administration began cutting the student loan office by nearly half. Corey Turner, NPR News. The WNBA and its players union have yet to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement. The two sides started talking again Wednesday afternoon in New York after ending a 12-hour negotiating session early Wednesday morning. Revenue sharing is the key sticking point. I'm Giles Snyder, NPR News.