NPR News: 07-21-2026 8PM EDT

Speaker 10:00

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Ryland Barton· Host0:15

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on Capitol Hill today asking Congress for tens of billions of dollars to fund the Iran war. The US has been intensifying attacks, and four American service members have died in the last week, as NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.

Quil Lawrence0:34

The president's statements over the past five months have sometimes been ignored or quickly walked back, like his suggestion to put a, a US toll on traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, or they've been contradictory, like, uh, ceasefire deals being dead, but also still under negotiation. And many Democrats on the committee pointed out that whatever rationale for the war as it evolves, uh, none of these have landed well with the American people, uh, certainly not well enough to understand why Americans are dying, albeit in relatively small numbers. But, um, these are young soldiers who, who've died over the weekend.

Ryland Barton· Host1:07

Yeah.

Quil Lawrence1:07

Um, you know, Private Isabella Gonzalez was just nineteen years old.

Ryland Barton· Host1:12

NPR's Quil Lawrence reporting. President Trump says he's directing his administration to allow US airlines to fly commercial flights from the US to Lebanon directly. It comes after Trump met at the White House with Lebanon's president. NPR's Deepa Shivaram has more.

Deepa Shivaram1:26

Trump announced the news in a post on social media and