NPR News: 04-04-2026 4PM EDT

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst.

Another threat from President Trump against Iran, saying on social media today, it has

48 hours to open the straight-up Hormuz or, quote, all hell will rain down.

He's already delayed that threat twice.

This is the search for a missing U.S. service member in Iran continues.

Two U.S. military planes were shot down yesterday, two other crew members were rescued.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow with a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

and former State Department official says it shows Iran remains a threat.

It's extraordinary, frankly, in the thousands of sorties that both the Americans and Israelis

have flown that this is the first time that you had a down-dare craft.

But it is, I think, tremendously symbolic.

It suggests that the Americans don't have total escalation dominance of the airspace.

The Iranians still have capacity not to mention the propaganda value of this, assuming

the Iranians find the airmen.

Speaking there on NPR's weekend edition.

In Lebanon, at least 23 people were killed in Israeli air strikes yesterday, about a third

of the country is Christian, but the lead up to Easter has been subdued this year, as

NPR's Lauren Freire reports.

Holy Week services are mixed with funerals and the sound of explosions.

Israel's military says it's striking Hezbollah's infrastructure after killing 1,000 of its

members.

United Nations peacekeepers have been wounded at their base in the south.

The U.N. says it doesn't know the origin of the explosion.

Israel says it was a Hezbollah rocket.

Three U.N. peacekeepers were also killed there last week.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. and Israel attack Iran and Iran retaliates against U.S. allies

in the Gulf, Lebanon has not been hit by Iranian fire.

But the U.S. Embassy in Beirut says Iran may now target U.S. universities in Lebanon.

The American University of Beirut has shifted some classes online.

The U.S. Embassy has also upped its overall warning telling U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon

now.

Lauren Freire and P.R. News Beirut.

The Trump administration was warned by the Mortgage Industry last year not to kill a program

that was helping military veterans avoid poor closure, but the VA killed it anyway.

Impares Chris Arnold reports the results show that veterans are losing their homes.

More than 10,000 veterans have lost their homes in foreclosure sales since Trump's VA

with no warning shut down that safety net program last May.

That's according to industry data, and it's the highest level in a decade.

Also 90,000 more vets are headed toward foreclosure.

The VA is rolling out a new program that could help, but it won't be up and running for months.

Steve Sharp with the National Consumer Law Center says vets are losing their homes

now.

We really shouldn't lose those folks to foreclosure, those homes, those families, children,

neighborhoods.

We should have something in place.

Sharp and some lawmakers are calling on the VA to stop foreclosures on vets until

its new program is functional.

Chris Arnold and P.R. News.

You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

Marmalade that orange preserve favored by Paddington Bayer may have to be renamed, so

producers in the U.K. can sell it in the European Union.

Vicki Barker has more from London.

To both spritz, the term orange marmalade is a redundancy.

The marmalade on British breakfast tables is invariably orange flavored.

Problem is, the term marmalade is a more generic term in Europe.

With the British government close to striking a post-Brexit trade deal with the European

Union, well, that cherished marmalade would have to be sold and labeled as, quote, citrus

marmalade to conform with EU standards.

Back in the 1970s, Britain was able to win a special dispensation from Brussels to

grant British marmalade protected status.

But with the U.K. now out of the European Union, its bargaining power is approximately

zero.

For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in London.

NASA says the Artemis II lunar mission is on schedule and that the astronauts will enter

the lunar gravitational pull tomorrow.

They'll be setting up cameras for close observations of the moon's craters.

NASA says around 20% of the moon's surface will be illuminated for them on the far side.

That's when they'll be testing the communication system by connecting to the deep space network

to see if it all works.

The three Americans and one Canadian astronaut will do a lunar fly-by on the far side of

the moon and they will lose communication with Earth during that time.

I'm Janine Herbst and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.