NPR News: 03-11-2026 1AM EDT

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President Trump appears to be backing off his political demands as he claims

the end of war in Iran is near.

NPR's Franco Ordonia's reports that the White House says Trump will determine

whether Iran has unconditionally surrendered.

The White House has been clear about its four military objectives,

but it's been less clear about the political ones.

Trump has said he would settle for nothing short of unconditional surrender

and that the U.S. needed to be part of the selection of an acceptable leader.

White House press secretary Caroline Levit told reporters Trump did not mean that literally.

When President Trump says that Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender,

he's not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out and say that themselves.

She says he meant that when Iran no longer poses a credible threat to the U.S.,

that's when he would determine the end of U.S. operations.

In the meantime, Iran's choice of a new Supreme Leader is the late Ayatollah's son,

who Trump is called unacceptable.

Franco Ordonia's NPR News, the White House.

China says it's evacuated thousands of its citizens from the Middle East and Iran as U.S. and Israeli strikes continue.

NPR's Emily Fang reports that the scale of the evacuations underlines a closer ties China's been building with countries in the region.

Over 10,000 Chinese citizens were brought out of Gulf countries like Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE,

according to a Chinese ministry spokesperson.

And more than 3,000 Chinese citizens had to be evacuated out of Iran, mostly overland their Azerbaijan.

With scores of flights canceled in the region, Beijing had to work with Chinese airlines to boost special evacuation flights out of the Gulf,

where China has pursued close economic and security ties with Gulf countries.

Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, said earlier this week that the U.S. Israeli war with Iran should not have happened,

and he warned against what he called the, quote, law of the jungle coming back.

Emily Fang, NPR News.

To Ohio now, where a federal judge has ruled that prediction markets are avoiding the law.

NPR's Bobby Allen reports there are more than 20 federal lawsuits over the betting crisis future.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Morrison says apps like Kalshian Polymarket are no different than gambling.

Kalshian argued it should not be regulated like a gambling operation because it's technically a type of futures contract, not a gambling site.

But billions of dollars are spent every week on Kalshian, where people bet on who will win the latest season of survivor,

where their Trump will say midnight hammer, and how many times sports announcers will say the word foul.

In her ruling, Morrison wrote, treating this as anything other than gambling is absurd.

Kalshian says it plans to appeal.

Nearly $6 billion was traded in the past week on Kalshian Polymarket, which is up nearly 2000% from last year.

Bobby Allen, NPR News.

This is NPR News.

Serious storm damage is being reported in Kankiki County, Illinois, about an hour south of Chicago.

No injuries have been reported, but the Illinois State Police says there is major damage from a reported tornado on the south side of Kankiki City.

As to whether services warning that severe storms could spin off tornadoes and bring large hail from Texas to Michigan.

The race to replace Marjorie Taylor Green in Congress is heading to a runoff.

No candidate was able to break the 50% threshold to avoid the runoff in Georgia's 14th Congressional District.

The top two vocators in Tuesday's special election will face each other next month.

Trump endorsed Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Sean Harris.

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University shows the active ingredient in magic mushrooms could help smokers quit.

NPR's Will Stone has more.

The study enrolled just over 80 current smokers who were randomly separated into two groups.

One used a nicotine patch.

The other ingested a relatively high dose of pure psilocybin, just one time.

At the six month mark, the psilocybin group had more than six times greater odds of being abstinent from cigarettes than their counterparts who had nicotine.

Matthew Johnson at Johns Hopkins led the study.

I was surprised by the sheer magnitude of the effect everyone in the trial also underwent 13 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Recent interest in psychedelics has mostly focused on depression and other mental health conditions.

psilocybin could be considered for drug approval in the next few years.

Will Stone and PR News.

This is NPR.

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